


Ruby Red and Copper Bitter

by lovetincture



Series: Something Wicked [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Injury, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Demon Hannibal Lecter, Disturbing Themes, Extremely Dubious Consent, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Painful Sex, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-01-22 19:53:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: “Don’t eat me,” Will says. He’s not dumb enough to think that would actually stop Hannibal, but it seems like it’s worth saying.Stop me if you've heard this one before— there once was a boy and a demon who fell in love.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Something Wicked [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534619
Comments: 191
Kudos: 298





	1. Chapter 1

A human heart is surprisingly large. It takes both of Will’s hands to cup it and bring it to his mouth. His teeth don’t neatly slice through flesh the way Hannibal’s do. He needs to tear at the muscle, ripping chunks away by force. It’s hard and unyielding beneath his teeth, and the raw, bloody taste is awful. He has to stop more than once when it threatens to come back up, but he doggedly keeps going, until finally one of Hannibal’s hands comes to cover his.

“It’s enough, little one,” he says as he takes the remnants of Will’s father’s heart away. It falls to the floor with a damp squish, like so much trash.

Then Hannibal gathers Will in his arms, scooping him up and laying him back on the bed. He parts Will’s thighs with his hands and Will moans weakly.

“Again?”

He doesn’t know if he can do it again. He’s tired and hurt, and he feels so very weak.

“This won’t hurt,” Hannibal promises. “I said I’d help you.”

He bends his head and licks Will between his legs, and Will flinches at the first touch of a rough tongue against his sore opening. Hannibal pays it no mind, just spreads Will’s legs wider and pulls his cheeks open to lick more thoroughly. Hannibal was wrong: it does hurt, a little. It tingles wherever his tongue touches. Will moans, and his hips move of their own accord, trying to press closer to the source of all that wet friction. Then Hannibal does something else with his tongue, points it and then it’s licking _inside_ Will, stroking his inner walls.

Will’s knees fall open, and he moans louder. He touches his own cock, wraps his fingers around it and starts jerking himself off. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to, but Hannibal is unperturbed. He keeps licking, and Will comes with a demon’s tongue buried in his ass.

It’s thrilling for all of about ten seconds until it becomes clear that Hannibal isn’t going to stop, and Will is forced to sit there and endure Hannibal continuing ministrations on his oversensitized skin. Hannibal holds his hips down when he starts to buck and only lets Will up when he’s finished.

He licks his lips, and Will blushes. “There. That should stop the bleeding and prevent infection. Can you stand?”

Will tries. He pushes himself up and cries out when he still feels the same jagged ache. He tries again anyway, wholly determined.

Hannibal tsks. “A yes or no will suffice. You needn’t hurt yourself.”

“No, then,” Will grits out.

“Good,” Hannibal says. He picks Will up again, holding him against his chest, seemingly unbothered by how filthy Will is with blood—his own and his father’s. He supposes Hannibal is just as bloody. Maybe Hannibal likes it. He takes Will into the bathroom, and Will doesn’t fail to notice that he finds it immediately, opening the correct door on the first try.

His eyes narrow. “Have you been in our house before?”

“Often,” Hannibal admits easily. “I enjoyed watching you sleep.”

“That’s creepy. You shouldn’t watch people sleep.”

Hannibal cocks his head. He frowns at the tarnished steel knobs above their bathtub and transfers all of Will’s weight to one arm. Will has the unsettling sensation that he’s about to fall when Hannibal bends down, so he twines his arms around Hannibal’s neck and holds on.

Hannibal presses one of the knobs, and nothing happens.

“Turn it,” Will murmurs into his neck. “You have to turn it.”

“Why shouldn’t I watch people sleep?” Hannibal asks as the bathtub fills up.

“Because it’s rude.”

Will expects Hannibal to have a retort for that, but he doesn’t. He’s glad. He doesn’t really feel like talking.

When the bathtub is half full, Hannibal turns off the tap and sets Will in the water gently. It’s too hot, and Will hisses as it touches his skin. The bathtub is dirty like everything else in the house. He can see soap scum and black gunk lining the bottom, but he’s so used to it that it barely registers. Then he can’t see it anymore anyway, once the dried blood caked across his skin lifts away, staining the water candy pink.

Hannibal crouches beside the tub and watches him with curious eyes, trailing a hand in the water.

Will feels self-conscious, so he grabs a washcloth for something to do with his hands. It’s stiff and crunchy from being left to dry soaked in the hard water of their home, but it softens when he dips it in the water. He scrubs a dirty bar of soap along it until it suds and scours his skin with it, washing himself harder than necessary. His skin pinks under the ungentle care.

“You’re hurting yourself,” Hannibal says, but he doesn’t sound mad, and he doesn’t tell Will to stop. He just watches like he’s interested.

Will shrugs and starts in on his other arm. He reaches his arm up to try to wash his back and stops when he feels a light tap on his shoulder.

A polite voice asks, “May I?”

He hesitates before finally handing the washcloth over. Hannibal takes it delicately, then dips it back into the tub and lathers it up, just as Will had. He rubs broad soapy circles over Will’s shoulder blades, across the knobs of his spine, and it doesn’t hurt at all.

He thinks Hannibal might try something, might reach under the water to touch his privates, but he doesn’t. When he’s satisfied that Will’s back is clean, he cups water in his hands and pours it over Will’s back. The washcloth sinks to the bottom of the tub, forgotten. After a moment’s hesitation, Will tips his head back to let Hannibal pour water over his hair too. He sighs as the hot water touches his scalp, easing tension he didn’t know he was holding.

There’s a bottle of shampoo sitting in the corner, but he doesn’t bother letting Hannibal know. It doesn’t seem to matter anyway, and he wonders if demons know about shampoo—if Hannibal watched him bathing the same way he apparently watched him sleep. Hannibal lathers the soap in his hands and works it into Will’s hair. He’s surprisingly mindful of his claws when he wants to be, Will learns to his chagrin. He lets his eyes slide shut while Hannibal massages his scalp, then dips his head beneath the water when prompted.

Hannibal doesn’t hold him under and drown him. Will isn’t sure why he’s disappointed by that.

He could linger in the tub, he’s pretty sure. Hannibal doesn’t seem interested in hurrying him out. He seems content to just… look at Will while he sits belly-deep in water, but the water is starting to cool, and the way Hannibal looks at him is making him uncomfortable. He pulls the plug and lets the water start to drain, fishes the washcloth out and hangs it over the side to dry.

Water pours off him in runnels as he stands up, and he shivers in the comparatively chilly air.

“It’s interesting,” Hannibal says as he plucks a towel from the rack behind him.

Will steps into it without prompting, allowing Hannibal to wrap him in it. Hannibal doesn’t look for excuses to touch him like his dad did. He steps away as soon as Will’s fingers close around the terrycloth.

“What is?”

“You complain that it’s rude when I watch you sleep, but not about me forcing myself on you against your will.”

Will says nothing.

“Is it because you’re used to your complaints falling on deaf ears? How many times did you ask your father to stop?”

Anger rises in him, white-hot and sudden. He brushes past Hannibal to leave, but Hannibal catches him with hands on his shoulders. He wrenches himself free, and Hannibal… just lets him go. Lets him retreat to the far side of the bathroom like a scared animal. He feels foolish standing there dripping wet, wrapped in nothing but a towel. It only makes him angrier.

“What does it matter?” he asks.

“It matters because I’m curious.”

The tub makes a loud sound as it sucks the last of the water down the drain.

“I don’t know,” Will says. “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

The dead body in his room stays in the back of Will’s mind. He forgets about it while he’s talking to Hannibal, but once he’s padding through the silent hallway, naked and alone, it’s all he can think about.

He has to venture back into his bedroom to get clean clothes. He can’t stay away forever. The scent of death has only intensified, made worse for his time in the bath filling his nose with the smell of clean soap, and Will holds his breath while he grabs clothes at random, not caring what he picks. He almost makes it out of the room without looking.

Almost.

Except it’s like trying not to think of a pink elephant, like the little bit in the corner of his mind that tells him to press his face to the stove burner whenever he turns it on—ruinous, irresistible. He looks.

His dad barely looks like his dad anymore. He looks more like meat, like one of the bodies in a scary movie. The scene wobbles; time reverses. He imagines his dad’s ribs coming back together, the flesh knitting itself up. He imagines his dad sliding back up the wall, the cherry red blood sucking back inside, yards of intestine coiling itself back up neat as the hose in the backyard. Hannibal’s claws move in reverse, healing his dad instead of slashing him open.

His dad looks at him, scared and concerned. _Billy, are you alright?_

He sucks in a great gasp of air like he’s been holding his breath. The fragile scene shatters. His dad is still laying on the floor slashed neatly in half, eyes already dulling as they stare up at the ceiling.

Will hurries out of the room, takes his clothes into the living room. He throws his towel over the back of the couch and gets dressed, wincing a little as he lifts one leg and then the other to step into boxers and shorts. He yanks his shirt over his head and uses the towel to roughly dry the water from his hair.

It’s morning now. Soft dawn light streams in through dirty windows, somehow making Hannibal look even more otherworldly and out of place. He seems like a creature made entirely out of shadow and darkness—like he _belongs_ there in the nighttime. He’s just as ink-dark in daylight, and it’s discomfiting when he moves.

Will tries not to notice it. He tries to mind his manners and not stare. Walking doesn’t feel particularly good.

“If you… licking me was supposed to make me better, then why does it still hurt?”

“It takes time for a body to knit itself back together, even under the influence of magic. You’ll feel better in time.”

“Oh. Okay.”

All the adrenaline has worn off now that he’s pretty sure Hannibal isn’t going to kill him in the next few minutes, and staying up all night is starting to take its toll. Will yawns. Once he starts, he can’t stop, and two more follow hot on its heels.

“You’re tired,” Hannibal says, still sounding fascinated like he does whenever Will does something normal. “You should sleep.”

“It’s daytime. It’s Tuesday. I have to go to school.”

“Humans are supposed to sleep when they’re tired. It keeps you from going insane.”

“I can’t sleep. I’ve already missed too many days of school, and if I miss another one I’ll flunk out of seventh grade.” He can feel an edge of hysteria creeping into his voice as he considers the fact that he’s explaining school to a monster.

He doesn’t know if Hannibal knows what seventh grade is. He doesn’t know if Hannibal knows what _school_ is. Hannibal apparently doesn’t care. He scoops up Will, who squawks at the indignity of it, and carries him to bed—to his dad’s bed, since his is still covered in blood and gore.

Will jumps off the bed immediately.

“You can’t carry me every time you want to win an argument.”

“Why not? You’re very small, and it’s easy.”

“Because it’s rude.”

“You’re very preoccupied with the concept of rudeness. Is it really so important?”

Will shrugs, and Hannibal waits, watching Will with a preternatural stillness that makes his skin crawl. That makes him shift from foot to foot, wishing Hannibal would stop.

“I’m not sleeping in that bed,” Will says finally.

There are too many memories—too many things he doesn’t want to think of but can’t help imagining. He hates his imagination. He sees it behind his eyes when he closes them, infinite movie reels of skin on skin, his father’s breath rancid in his face, his fingers blunt and thick in Will’s body _shh, shh, boy, don’t cry._

He swallows thickly.

“You can sleep on the floor then,” Hannibal says.

Will is about to say something sharp and cutting, that he won’t sleep on the floor because the floor is dirty and he’s not tired, but it dies on his tongue. Hannibal gets down on the floor. He curls up like a cat and leaves a space that’s obviously for Will, just big enough to nestle into.

_I’m not sleeping with you_ is right on the tip of his tongue. _I don’t want to cuddle with you. I’m too big for cuddles._

But his dad is dead, and that means he’s alone in the world now. It’s a thought that’s too big. It’s too hard to fold his mind around it. He’s tired, and he’s not sure he wants to be alone. Hannibal looks at him with red coal eyes, and Will gets down on the floor. He does feel better. The pain in his belly has settled into a dull ache. He folds his body against Hannibal’s and pillows his head on the monster’s arm.

The ground is hard beneath him, and he can’t get comfortable. He’s acutely aware of the fact that Hannibal isn’t wearing any clothes. His breath picks up, and he can’t slow it back down. Panic. Fear.

“Close your eyes,” Hannibal says.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes.”

Hannibal’s eyes are dizzying up close. His face looks softer when it’s pillowed on his shoulder like this.

“Close your eyes, and I’ll tell you a story.”

Will hesitates before doing as he’s told. “Don’t eat me,” he says. He’s not dumb enough to think that would actually stop Hannibal, but it seems like it’s worth saying.

Hannibal kisses him on the forehead. “If I ate you, I would let you watch.”

Will grimaces with his eyes closed.

The story Hannibal tells him is terrible. It’s full of fire and blood, death and dismemberment. Will doesn’t think he’ll fall asleep, but he does, cradled in a monster’s arms, listening to tales of ruin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated the tags, might want to give them a look.

He’s disoriented when he wakes up. There’s an unfamiliar curtain in front of his face, and it takes Will a minute to place it as the dust ruffle along the bottom of his dad’s bed. His hair is stuck to his forehead with a light sheen of sweat, and it tickles his nose. The light pouring through the windows is warm and golden, speaking of late afternoon and sticky skin. He’s too warm where he’s pressed up against an unfamiliar body, and Will tries to scoot away. The heavy arm around his waist tightens, and Will freezes like prey.

“You’re awake,” Hannibal says. His voice rumbles against Will’s back, through the cheap t-shirt there.

“Yeah.” He twists around to look at Hannibal. “Do you sleep?”

“Occasionally. Not as much as you do.”

“Oh,” Will says. “Okay.”

He yawns and sits up, and this time Hannibal lets him. The room looks exactly the same as it always has, and that feels so wrong somehow. The digital clock casts the same faint green glow. Fishing rods lean against an unused closet. His dad’s boots peek out from beneath the bed.

Will’s throat feels tight.

“My dad is dead,” he says.

“He is. Does that make you happy?”

“I don’t know.” Will fingers the cracking leather on the toe of a boot. He peels off a flake with a dirty thumbnail, giving the little nothing task more attention than it really deserves. “I hated him. But I loved him too.”

He looks at Hannibal, wonders if Hannibal understands.

“It seems like a poor choice to love someone who did such things to you.”

Will shrugs. “I don’t think you always get to pick.”

They don’t say anything else. Will watches the dust motes swirl across the room.

Finally Hannibal gets up from where he’s curled on the floor, unfurling himself a silent grace that seems unfathomable. Will scrambles up after him, graceless and gawky.

“What happens now?” he asks.

“I return to my home, and you do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

Hannibal strides out of the room, and Will stares at his retreating back with a rapidly mounting sense of panic.

“No!” He hurries after Hannibal. “What do you mean? You’re _leaving?_ You can’t leave.”

What he means is _you can’t leave me here._

“Of course I can. I was curious about you, Will Graham, and you have satisfied my curiosity admirably.”

“So that’s it?”

“That’s it.” He presses his thumb to Will’s head, and the spot tingles even after Hannibal takes his hand away. “You’re a fascinating child who has the potential to grow into a fascinating adult. I hope you continue to realize your potential, to cultivate your impulses as the inspirations they are.”

Will balls his hands into fists. “You killed my dad. You can’t just leave.”

“Goodbye, Will.”

Hannibal is _discorporating._ There’s no other word for it. He’s _leaving, _and Will does the first thing he can think of. He punches Hannibal. They both seem equally shocked by this, and neither one of them moves for long seconds.

Hannibal blinks. “Did you just hit me?”

Will recovers first. He punches Hannibal again and again, raining ineffectual blows on him until Hannibal stills him by grabbing each of Will’s fists in his larger, taloned hands. Hannibal seems to grow taller, looming over him and practically radiating menace. It’s terrifying, and Will just bares his teeth.

“You can’t leave,” he says stubbornly.

“What an interesting child you are,” Hannibal says.

Hannibal doesn’t leave. When they finally do leave the house, they do it together. Will dumps his books and pencils out of his backpack and fills it up with clothes and the half-full bag of Cheez-Its from the cupboard. He folds the top of the bag down so it won’t spill and throws the box away. Hannibal looks out the window, eyes tracking something. Will looks, but he doesn’t see anything at all. It gives him the creeps.

Before they go, they light his house on fire. Hannibal lets him do the honors. He expects to feel something as he watches it burn, to feel anything at all. He doesn’t. The flames lick up the sides of the house, shattering the windows and scorching everything black. He thinks of his posters curling and crumbling to ash, yesterday’s breakfast dishes languishing in the sink. He imagines the county’s small volunteer fire brigade coming to the scene. He wonders what they’ll think happened.

The sun has disappeared behind the horizon while they’ve worked, and a chill in the air makes goosebumps stand out all over Will’s skin. He rubs his arms and shuffles a little closer to Hannibal’.

“Can we go?” he asks.

Hannibal nods, and Will follows him to his dad’s truck. It turns out Hannibal can drive. Will absorbs this knowledge without commenting on it. Demons exist, and they don’t know how to use a water faucet, but they know how to drive. Who is he to say it can’t be true?

He doesn’t ask where they’re going. He doesn’t really care.

The AC in the truck is busted—it has been for as long as Will can remember, so he rolls down the window instead. He sticks his head out and lets the wind buffet him, turning his face to the dark forest as it whizzes by. If he closes his eyes, it feels like freedom. It feels like flying.

* * *

They drive until it gets dark, and then for a while after. The old truck’s console doesn’t light up, so Will has no idea what time it is. It feels late. They stop at a motel when Hannibal decides that they should. Will gets out of the car and slams the door behind him.

He has a brief shock when he looks at Hannibal again.

“You’re human.” He reaches out to touch, taking one of Hannibal’s hands in his.

The hand is normal—big, like his dad’s, but pale peach and covered in prominent veins and a dusting of fine, light hairs. It looks nothing like midnight. Will runs his fingers across the tips of Hannibal’s and doesn’t feel the scraping drag of claws. His fingernails are human, close-cropped and clean. Ordinary hands disappear into a suit jacket, dark charcoal grey with a red grid overlaid atop it. It looks and smells expensive, and Will is almost afraid to put his hands on it, like he’ll mess it up. The rest of Hannibal’s clothes—all seemingly conjured out of thin air—match, and Will thinks Hannibal might be the fanciest person he’s ever seen in his life.

“Not human,” Hannibal says with a faint smile. “I’m just the same as I was, but I can take other forms if I want to.”

“That’s amazing.” It really is. Will frowns as something dawns on him. “Wait, you don’t have to have claws?”

“The form you’ve seen is closest to my true form. It’s comfortable to me, not unlike a well-loved garment. But no, I don’t need to have claws, not unless I’d like to.”

_Blood, pain, fingers inside him, _dying.

He swallows. “So when you… cut me.”

“It was because I wanted to. Because I enjoyed it. Does that upset you?”

Will shrugs. “I don’t know.”

* * *

He expects that everyone will look at them and just _know_—He doesn’t know what he expects them to know. Something. That Hannibal is a demon, that Will watched as his father was murdered then ate his warm heart. That Will is dirty, that he’s _different_—but no one seems to notice anything.

The man behind a desk in the tiny motel office is bored. Hannibal smiles wide and charming, and it’s wasted on this person who doesn’t notice at all. He barely looks up from his book when they come in, just takes Hannibal’s money and hands them a room key without a second glance.

It’s late enough that the corridors are deserted. They pass a lone couple in the hallway, giggling and leaning on each other, nearly tripping over each other’s feet because they’re walking so close, and the man nods at Will and Hannibal as they pass.

Hannibal opens the door to their room and ushers Will inside with a hand on the small of his back. The room is small but clean, aside from a large water spot on the ceiling and the lingering scent of cigarette smoke. Dubious stains line a carpet printed with garish floral prints.

There’s only one bed. Will’s heart pounds when he sees it. He sneaks nervous glances at Hannibal, wondering what he’ll do, but the answer seems to be _nothing._ He either doesn’t see Will’s fearful looks or he’s pretending not to notice. Or he’s genuinely unbothered; Will figures any of those could be true.

_You moron, you followed a demon who raped you. He was going to go away, and you made him stay._

“Would you like to shower first?” Hannibal asks, and the question takes Will aback, jarring him out of his thoughts.

“Sure. Thanks.”

The motel at least has plenty of hot water. Will stays in the shower until his fingers prune up, until Hannibal knocks on the door.

_You’re all so pretty when you suffer,_ Hannibal had said.

The memory sends a sick shudder through him. He wonders if Hannibal wants Will to be pretty for him again.

* * *

Will puts off sleeping for as long as he can, which should be easy because he isn’t tired, but the truth is there’s nothing to do. Hannibal has been still for the last half hour, staring into space with half-lidded eyes in a way Will finds deeply creepy. He’s learning that apparently boredom and fear can coexist just fine, and he wishes he’d thought to bring a book.

Eventually Hannibal stops doing whatever it is that he’s doing, and he gets into bed before turning off the lamp on the nightstand. The room is cast in pitch darkness.

Will waits to see if Hannibal will tell him to go to sleep, but he doesn’t. There’s really no reason to sit up alone in a dark room, except that he’s afraid. He creeps toward the bed little by little, wary as a dog who’s been kicked too many times.

He finds the bed by feel and pulls back the covers before sliding in. He can feel Hannibal’s body heat radiating beside him, warmer than a person should be. He knows that Hannibal is awake without knowing how. There’s a sense of keen alertness he can almost feel. The bed is big enough that they don’t have to touch unless they want to.

“Are you going to fuck me?” Will asks in the dark.

“No,” Hannibal says. “Go to sleep.”

That should be reassuring, but it somehow isn’t. It makes _sense_ if Hannibal wants to fuck him. Then Will can give him something, and Hannibal will keep protecting Will and he won’t leave. Will inches his hand forward beneath the covers, reaches between Hannibal’s legs. Hannibal isn’t wearing any clothes, and Will’s hand connects with coarse, wiry curls and warm skin before a quick hand closes around his wrist and plucks it away.

Hannibal deposits Will’s hand firmly back at his own side.

“Go to sleep, Will.”

“I’m not tired,” he says petulantly. He slept for most of the day, and he’s wide awake now.

“Nevertheless. Staying fixed in a corporeal form drains my energy, and I would like to sleep now.”

Will’s cheeks burn with the sting of rejection, and he’s glad it’s dark enough that Hannibal can’t see it. He huffs and turns over to face the wall.

He kicks the mattress once. Twice, until Hannibal drags him near and wraps a leg around both of Will’s to keep him still.

“Stop,” he says.

Will wriggles against him, defiant, but he really can’t move much at all like this. Eventually he gives up and lies still, breath quick and ragged, feeling the warm weight of Hannibal’s cock through the thin fabric of his boxers. He half hopes Hannibal will touch him in the night, and he’s half afraid that he will.

All of his dreams are dark and confused.

* * *

In the morning, Will wakes up to the sensation of something rubbing between his legs. There’s something slippery rubbing firmly at his hole. It feels good, and he pushes back against it, still caught in the grey, formless world between sleeping and waking. It slides into him when he grinds back against it, and the intrusion makes him open his eyes.

He can’t move his legs—that’s the second thing he realizes. He panics until he realizes it’s because his boxers are shoved down around his thighs, holding them in place.

The finger in his ass slides deeper, and at first he thinks _dad._

The voice that speaks to him is not his father’s. It’s lighter and smoother and carries an accent Will has never heard on anyone else. “You’re awake.”

“Hannibal,” he moans.

“Tell me how it feels.”

It still hurts—he wasn’t ready to have something put in him, but it isn’t the same type of hurt as last time. There’s no ripping, tearing pain, only the stretch and burn of thick human fingers feeling him from the inside out.

“It feels weird. Like that isn’t supposed to go there. It feels full.” Hannibal’s finger brushes something inside him, and he gasps. _“Oh.”_

“Did your father ever do this to you?”

Will shakes his head frantically. Hannibal does it again and again, keeping at that one spot until Will is panting. A thin, desperate noise comes out of his mouth, high and embarrassing.

“Will, tell me.”

“Good,” Will gasps. “It feels—oh, it feels good. Don’t stop.”

He moans as Hannibal presses harder. There’s the sound of a cap popping open, then the cloying smell of rose-scented lotion that Hannibal drizzles on the place where their bodies meet. It’s cold, and it makes Will jump. He grunts when Hannibal squeezes another finger in alongside the first, wincing at the burning pressure of it.

“Tell me.”

“It feels dirty. Wrong. Like I’m doing something bad.”

“You’re not doing anything wrong,” Hannibal says close to his ear. “This is life. This is survival.”

Will doesn’t know what to make of that. He doesn’t have time to make anything of it before he’s being rolled onto his stomach. Hannibal’s fingers are replaced by something large and blunt nudging against him, and Will knows exactly what it is. He whimpers and tries to move forward, tries to get away, but Hannibal is so much heavier. He’s caught and held, pinned in place. Hannibal strokes a soothing hand down Will’s back as he pushes forward.

It’s a slow, agonizing slide, and Will feels every inch of it. He bites his lips and doesn’t scream.

“Let me hear you, _mylimasis._ Let me hear how it feels.”

“Hurts,” he grits out, clawing his fingers in the sheets. “You’re too big, and it hurts. I wish you would take it out.”

“But you’ll take it for me?”

Will squints his eyes shut. He breathes through his nose and nods. Probably nothing different would’ve happened if he hadn’t agreed, but saying yes makes him feel like _no_ was an option. He lies still and lets Hannibal have him, lets his mind drift and goes somewhere else. He’s brought back to himself by a firm pinch to the skin on his side.

“Don’t go away. Stay with me,” Hannibal says.

“Okay,” he pants. “Hurry up. It really hurts.”

He’s quieter than Will’s dad. He doesn’t grunt and groan and make a lot of noise. He doesn’t cuss when he comes. When Hannibal comes, he goes very still, burying himself deep in Will and spilling with a soft sound. He goes slack for a moment, and all Will can think is _finally._

When he pulls out, the sudden emptiness is jarring. He’s sore when Hannibal turns him over. He’s hard from being fucked, and that’s mortifying.

“Don’t look,” he says, trying to hide himself with his hands.

“But I want to see you. Will you touch yourself and let me watch?”

“It’s embarrassing.”

Hannibal cocks his head. “You did it before. Why is this so different?”

“It just is,” Will says, but he wraps a tentative hand around himself anyway, tightening his fingers and pumping his cock in a few strokes that make him gasp. Hannibal watches with keen eyes while Will grits his teeth and blushes and tries to pretend Hannibal isn’t sitting there looking at him like that.

“Lovely,” Hannibal says, and Will’s blush deepens.

He pulls Will’s boxers off his legs, finally, but only so he can smooth his hands over Will’s thighs, parting them and holding them open. He rubs his thumb over Will’s entrance where he feels tender and open. Where he can already feel come leaking down the inside of his leg, cooling in the recycled air. Hannibal dips his thumb in, and Will jerks.

“So sensitive,” Hannibal murmurs.

He pulls his thumb back and replaces it with two fingers. They slide in easily. _Loose,_ Will thinks. He thinks, _whore._ It doesn’t hurt the way Hannibal’s cock had. It feels good, especially when Hannibal starts rubbing at that thing inside him, pressing it in time to Will’s strokes. Will lets his hand speed up, and he tenses all over.

He can feel his orgasm building, and then _pain, _bright and clean. Will sobs and comes harder than he ever has, body clenching around something sharp and deadly.

Hannibal withdraws his fingers and licks the blood from his claws with a satisfied smile that chills Will right down to his bones.

He cries, after. His dad would have smacked him for crying, but his dad isn’t here. His dad also wouldn’t have stuck knives inside him—he never hurt Will _too_ badly. But his dad is dead, so maybe it doesn’t matter all that much what he would have done.

Hannibal leaves him to it. He disappears into the bathroom, and Will can hear the shower running.

“I chose this,” he says to the empty room.

He keeps choosing it. People will ask questions if there’s blood on the sheets, and Will doesn’t want either of them to have to answer them. He can’t stand up without dripping on the carpet, so he holds a hand under himself so he doesn’t make a mess. He'll clean up whenever Hannibal gets out of the shower.

“I chose this.”

He did.

He feels homesick.


	3. Chapter 3

Hannibal heals him eventually.

He gets out of the shower and licks Will better, and they check out without incident. He feels proud that he managed not to bleed on anything. The hotel room looks just the same when they leave it as when they found it. They pile back into his dad’s truck, and they drive. Will eats half the Cheez-Its to calm the gnawing, rumbling hunger in his stomach.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“I have no idea.”

Will blinks. He wasn’t expecting that.

“Really? You don’t have a plan?”

Hannibal looks away from the road for a moment to raise his eyebrows at Will. “I had a plan. It did not involve staying here with you. We’ll have to improvise from here.”

Will nods. “Okay.”

Will can hear a smile in Hannibal’s voice, a curl of amusement when he speaks again. “You don’t seem very concerned about what that means. What I might do, what I might ask you to do. You aren’t afraid?”

“I’m always afraid,” Will murmurs. “Always have been, for as long as I can remember. This doesn’t seem worse. It seems better.”

Hannibal doesn’t say anything to that. Will watches the trees roll by.

They drive all day, stopping for gas once. Will gets out of the car to pump it because Hannibal seems confused about how the gas pumps work.

An elderly woman totters by, smiling at them both and stopping to tell Hannibal what a nice young man he’s raising. Will’s stomach does a weird somersault as he shakes the last drips of gas from the nozzle and into the tank, and Hannibal just thanks her graciously.

They ditch the car at the second motel.

Will catches a fitful night’s sleep, and when he wakes up in the morning, his dad’s truck is nowhere to be seen. Hannibal pulls a pair of unfamiliar keys from his pocket, a rhinestone-encrusted Mickey Mouse head dangling from its keychain. Will follows him to a car he’s never seen before, a beige hatchback sporting a handful of peeling bumper stickers.

“Did you… make this car?”

Hannibal frowns. “No, Will. I can’t do that.”

“Oh.” He gets in the passenger seat and buckles his seatbelt. “Did you steal it?”

“Yes.”

“Did you kill someone for it?”

“I did.”

Will thinks about that. “Okay.”

The car smells like dog and artificial pine air freshener. He hopes the dogs have another owner, that they’ll be okay when this one doesn’t come back. Maybe they have a neighbor that will let them outside and give them food. This car has air conditioning, but Will rolls down the window anyway. He doesn’t like feeling trapped. He likes the feel of the wind in his hair.

“Hannibal?”

“Yes?”

He hesitates. “Can I watch next time?”

Will feels something prickly and effervescent bubbling up in his chest. It feels like pride. It feels nothing like the time he hit a fly ball out of the park at Little League. It’s deeper and darker. It matches the smile Hannibal favors him with.

“Of course,” Hannibal says.

* * *

They keep having sex.

They do it in bed, mostly. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes at night, in a bunch of different motels crawling up the east coast. It mostly isn’t that bad. Hannibal is handsome when he’s human, and he smells nice. His hair is sandy brown, and his eyes are flat and cold in an expressive face. He looks nice when he smiles.

Hannibal mostly doesn’t hurt Will too bad, but Will knows that he _can. _He dreams about the terrible cutting edge of his claws, the luminous black of his truer skin. It makes him want to please Hannibal, makes him want to pray. He thinks he understands church now—understands the neighbor women who’d knock on the door when his dad wasn’t home, talking about Jesus and inviting him into your heart—because now he’s desperate to find salvation between bed sheets.

The world is easy when you understand how it works, and Will has always known. You appease the people bigger than you. You give them nice things so they don’t hurt you. You make yourself useful. If you find a god, you worship and pray.

The other capital-g God hadn’t wanted him—a preacher had told him so when he was nine, had scented the tarnish on his skin and kicked him out of the church with his threadbare pants and shoes full of holes. It’s only fair, Will had thought even then; of course God doesn’t want him—why would he? Why would anyone? But he’d found another god who had.

So Hannibal has sex with him, and everything is fine. Except then he just… doesn’t.

Hannibal hasn’t touched him in days. At first Will thinks he must have done something wrong, and he wracks his brain trying to find a _reason. _Something he might have done to make Hannibal angry—something he did to deserve this. But Hannibal isn’t _mad._ He’s nice to Will, polite and friendly and sometimes even funny. He just… doesn’t touch him.

Panic starts creeping up the back of Will’s spine, prickling along his scalp. It makes the food they eat taste like sawdust, suffuses every moment until he’s on edge constantly, jumping at shadows. He has nightmares. He wets the bed once, to his mortification, and Hannibal just helps him clean it up without saying a word about it.

And still Hannibal won’t touch him. Will remembers Hannibal turning him down that first time, in the first motel room after his dad died. He remembers how much it stung, and he won’t ask for it. He _won’t._

Except he cracks first. Of course he does.

Hannibal is in the shower, and Will is sitting alone on the bed underneath a bland painting of a boat, aimlessly flicking through the channels. This hotel has cable. There are cartoons he vaguely recognizes, but he barely notices. Mostly he stews in his own fear, the intolerability of not knowing what comes next.

He’s practically climbing the walls by the time water turns off and the bathroom door opens.

“Can we have sex?” Will blurts when Hannibal emerges in a cloud of water vapor.

If the question phases him, he gives no indication. He looks unperturbed and neither slows down nor speeds up as he walks through the room to stop in front of Will. Droplets of water slither down his chest, some of them getting caught in the thicket of hair there. They change in front of each other often. It’s not like Will’s never seen Hannibal without clothes on, but usually he has other things to do besides just _look. He_ has a moment of self-consciousness for his own skinny, hairless chest.

“It’s unusual for a child to be so promiscuous,” Hannibal says.

Will’s face gets hot. “I didn’t mean— Look, if you don’t want to, I just—” He jumps off the bed, planning to go turn on the shower and hide in the bathroom. “Forget it.”

Hannibal’s hand closes around Will’s arm as he stalks past, and the helpless anger leaks out of him. Hannibal pulls him near, and Will lets himself be drawn, quiet as a rabbit in a hound’s mouth. He doesn’t struggle at all.

“That was not a judgment or a complaint,” Hannibal tells him. He trails his hand down the front of Will’s shirt, lower, to cup him through his jeans. Will is already starting to get hard, embarrassingly so. He whimpers and pushes into Hannibal’s hand.

_Shameless,_ the little voice in his head whispers. _Slut._

“Sex distresses you. It hurts you, even when I don’t harm you intentionally. Your body is immature and underdeveloped, and anal sex injures you, so why do you ask for it?” He squeezes a little, and Will gasps.

His throat feels tight, and his eyes feel hot with tears prickling at the corners.

“It’s what I’m good for,” he says, and he can’t meet Hannibal’s eyes.

“No,” Hannibal says firmly. “Do you think that’s why I stayed? That isn’t why I’m here, willingly caging myself in a sack of flesh. It isn’t what I see in you. You’re so much more than the body that carries you.”

Will turns his face away. He shakes his head no. It’s too much.

“It bothers you when I’m gentle with you,” Hannibal muses. “You would rather I hurt you.”

Will balls his hands into fists. He wants to hide. He wants to be seen. “It’s not that. I don’t—I don’t _like_ being hurt. It’s just… it’s less confusing, knowing what to expect. Something always hurts you, and it’s better to know than to have to wonder when.”

Hannibal lets go of Will and turns him around roughly. Will gasps as Hannibal pushes him down, bracing his arms on the edge of the bed so he won’t fall. Hannibal reaches around to undo the button and fly of Will’s jeans, pushing them down along with his underwear. Will kicks them off frantically, thinking yes_, this._

“Spread your legs, _mylimasis,” _Hannibal says, and Will shuffles his bare feet awkwardly apart on the sticky carpet. Hannibal grips his cheeks and spreads them open. The cool air of the room feels shocking on his overheated skin.

Then Hannibal kneels between his legs and _sniffs,_ and Will whimpers, embarrassed. He tries to bring his knees together, to hide without thinking, and he earns himself a short, sharp smack on the rear for his trouble.

“Stay still,” Hannibal says.

“Sorry,” Will whispers.

The spanking doesn’t hurt, but it’s shocking. It feels humiliating, having himself so open to Hannibal’s gaze, and he feels himself starting to leak against the comforter’s bedspread. His body is disgusting.

Hannibal sticks out his tongue and runs it over the pucker of Will’s hole, tasting him, and Will’s mind goes blissfully blank. He blows a puff of air over the dampened skin, and Will jumps. Then Hannibal lets go. He presses a kiss to the side of Will’s flank and climbs atop the bed, arranging himself leisurely against the headboard.

“What?” Will asks. His tongue feels thick and slow. His mouth is dry. Hannibal’s skin is still wet, and he wants to catch the droplets with his tongue.

“Show me, then,” Hannibal says. “If you believe this is all you’re good for—if you believe that I should feel the same, then show me.” His lips curl up in a cruel smile that makes Will’s heart race. “Show me how good you can be.”

Will’s heart feels like it’s in his throat. _I don’t want to,_ he wants to say. It’s perched right behind his teeth. _I don’t want to do this._

But Hannibal waits patiently, with knowing eyes, and Will grits his teeth and climbs onto the bed. Hannibal’s cock is laying quiescent against his thigh, soft and harmless, and Will reaches out to touch it. It’s hot and a little damp from Hannibal’s shower. He hesitates, looking to Hannibal for direction, but he finds none.

“You can do whatever you like,” Hannibal says. “Or nothing at all.”

He waits. Will takes a deep breath.

He pulls Hannibal’s foreskin back, revealing a pink head underneath. He bends his head and laps at it experimentally. The fluid at the tip is salty and a little bitter. It doesn’t taste good, but it’s not that bad either. The low rumble Hannibal makes is encouraging, so he does it again, little kitten licks all over the head and shaft, exploring. It comes to life in his hands, filling with blood and thickening, lengthening. He sucks the tip into his mouth and feels a little swell of pride when Hannibal’s hand comes to cup the back of his head.

He’s afraid Hannibal will push his head down. (He’s afraid that he won’t.) But Hannibal just runs his fingers through Will’s hair, ruffling his curls and scratching Will’s scalp with very blunt, very human fingernails.

Will opens his mouth as wide as he can and bobs his head, letting the rigid weight fill his mouth. He goes down too far and ends up choking himself, and he pulls off coughing and sputtering.

“You can use your hands,” Hannibal murmurs.

Will licks his lips and tries again. He wraps both his hands around Hannibal’s shaft and strokes. It’s strange doing this to someone else. He licks and sucks at the tip while trying to find a good rhythm with his hands. His jaw is getting sore when Hannibal’s breath changes. It gets louder and heavier. It makes something flutter in his gut.

Hannibal comes without warning, flooding Will’s mouth with viscous, bitter fluid. Will gags and spits it out, then looks at Hannibal, sheepish.

“Sorry.”

Hannibal tugs him up so that Will is sitting in his lap. “You don’t have to apologize. You’re not obligated to do anything when it comes to me. Do you understand?”

That doesn’t seem true. Will means to say it, but he can’t stop staring at Hannibal’s mouth. He follows a perverse impulse and presses their lips together. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s never kissed anyone before, but he suddenly badly wants to kiss Hannibal.

He pokes his tongue out and licks inexpertly at the seam of Hannibal’s lips, and Hannibal chuckles. He cups a hand around Will’s jaw and tilts Will’s face toward his, taking control of the kiss. He slides his tongue into Will’s mouth and licks the taste of himself away. Will moans in surprise. It feels weird. It feels good.

He’s still hard, acutely aware of the way his erection is poking against Hannibal’s stomach, especially when Hannibal brushes his knuckles past it.

“Did you want something, Will?” There’s a playful wickedness in his voice.

“Put your fingers in me,” Will says, bolder than he feels. He’s breathless and feeling loved. “Put your mouth on me.”

Hannibal smiles. He sucks two fingers into his mouth and trails them down, circling the rim of Will’s entrance. He presses them in without warning, firm and insistent. Will moans at the contact, bearing down to let Hannibal slide all the way in. Hannibal pulls him close and kisses him again. The feeling of Hannibal’s tongue fucking into his mouth makes him dizzy. He sucks on it, and Hannibal growls.

He’s closer to the edge than he realized, and Hannibal’s barely wrapped his fingers around Will’s cock before he’s jerking and spilling onto their bellies.

Hannibal fucks him through it, letting Will ride his hand until he’s done. He waits until Will’s ridden the last shocks of his orgasm before pulling his fingers free. He gathers Will up in his arms and wraps them both in the scratchy hotel bedspread. They lie there sticky and sated, warm and wholly wrapped up in each other.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read all your comments! I loved them, and I love you. I've just been so busy, and I'll get around to replying soon <3

They drive through Pennsylvania. A cheerful yellow sign on Route 165 declares Maryland Welcomes You above a smaller, squatter sign detailing information about local farmers markets. The fields are green and lush, and Will rests his head against the windowsill.

“If you keep driving toward the coast, we’re eventually going to run out of road,” Will says without really caring what Hannibal’s answer will be. The sun is hot and warm on his face. He feels loose and happy. It’s the sort of endless day where everything takes on a dreamy quality. He’s had a lot of those lately.

“I thought we’d stop soon,” Hannibal says by way of response, and Will just nods.

They drive on through the afternoon. Verdant greens give way to the grey and glitter of cement and glass. They stop in Baltimore—really stop—in a motel that’s nicer than any of the ones they’ve stayed in so far. Will tosses his bag on one of the beds and follows shortly after it, stretching out atop another scratchy bedspread with his shoes still on, familiar in all its unfamiliarity.

He’s barely gotten settled before Hannibal is tapping him on the foot. “Up.”

Will groans with a hand flung over his eyes. “Do I have to?”

“I’d appreciate it if you would,” Hannibal says mildly.

He thinks about saying no just to see what would happen, but he’s not feeling that petty.

He sits up and stretches, and Hannibal hands Will his jacket. “I thought we could go for a walk to stretch our legs. We’ve been sitting for hours.”

“Okay,” Will says. “Sounds good.”

It actually does. Once they start walking, Will feels better with fresh air in his lungs. The shadows grow long as the sun sinks behind the tallest buildings. Will takes Hannibal’s hand unasked. He likes holding it, likes the feeling of being kept near as they stroll along city blocks. They walk through a park with a white paved pathway cutting through neatly manicured grass.

“It’s all so pretty,” Will says. “Everything’s so _clean.”_

Hannibal hums. “It does have its charm, doesn’t it?”

Will turns his head to watch as two squirrels chitter angrily at the base of a tree. They dart up to the top of the trunk in the blink of an eye and continue their argument on one of the lower branches. They emerge from the park at the other end and walk along a row of houses.

It’s the kind of neighborhood that makes Will uncomfortable, the kind he so clearly doesn’t belong in. The lawns out front are pristine and perfect, with perfectly shaped hedges and flower beds studding the grass. He walks closer to Hannibal without consciously deciding to.

“You don’t like it here,” Hannibal observes.

Will shrugs. “It’s not that I don’t like it, I guess. It just feels like somewhere I’m not supposed to be.”

“Why is that?”

“This is the sort of place where rich people live. Fancy people.” He laughs and it sounds hollow. “Not people like me.”

“I don’t like that,” Hannibal says. He frowns like the words puzzle him. “How strange.”

They keep walking for a few more blocks, and then Hannibal stops without warning, so that Will is yanked back by their joined hands.

“Hannibal, what—?”

Hannibal is looking up at a tall house made from pale bricks. It’s imposing and huge; it seems to loom up over the sidewalk with a kind of ominous foreboding that Will thinks suits Hannibal well. There’s a ‘For Sale’ sign stuck in a lawn that’s just as uniformly beautiful as the front yards of the houses all around it.

“How would you like to live here, Will?”

Will blinks. Staying in a string of motels is one thing, but moving into a house feels _permanent._ He sits with the idea, trying to figure out how it makes him feel. Warm, he decides. Happy, maybe. But still—

“It’s so big. Can we afford it?”

Hannibal scoffs. “Money is such a human concept. You don’t have to worry about that.”

He can’t wrap his head around that. He can’t remember a time when he _wasn’t_ worried about money in some vague, unformed way. Even when he was too young to fully grasp the concept, there was always a persistent sense of knowing they couldn’t afford certain things—name brand cereals, new shoes, pants that weren’t several sizes too big so he could ‘grow into them.’

“Will?”

He didn’t realize he’d been quiet for so long. Hannibal is peering down at him, waiting for an answer.

Will swallows. “I like it.”

Hannibal nods. “Good. I’ll contact the realtor tomorrow.”

Just like that. Like it’s that easy.

He doesn’t know how to say what he feels, so he just squeezes Hannibal’s hand extra tight. He hopes it makes sense. He hopes Hannibal gets it.

The house is theirs with a speed that Will has to imagine owes something to black magic. They move in within a week, although _moving in_ is possibly too ambitious a way to describe it. After all, Will doesn’t own anything but the backpack on his back, and Hannibal doesn’t seem to own anything at all.

Standing still feels strange after running for so long. It’s strange to wake up ensconced in the same walls night after night, morning after morning. The familiarity of it gives him vertigo.

The house is unfurnished, wide and empty, with dark wooden floorboards that echo when he walks. Will doesn’t know or particularly care when they’ll get furniture, or if they will. For now, they sleep on the floor in one of the bedrooms. It reminds Will of the first morning, the first time he’d fallen asleep curled in Hannibal’s arms, tucked against his dark, scintillating skin.

It’s different now. Hannibal stays in his person suit—pink and soft, face gently lined with age—but he holds Will just as snug against him. He wonders if Hannibal likes looking human, if he prefers walking around looking like someone Will might know, or if he does it for Will’s benefit. He finds that either answer makes him feel just as warm, so he doesn’t need to ask.

They don’t have electricity or heat yet, but the summer air is balmy, and all through the night he doesn’t shiver at all.

* * *

It’s strange living somewhere with so much space. The house he grew up in was so small that he and his dad were practically living on top of each other, and he’s spent the last several weeks in close quarters with Hannibal. Will hadn’t realized just how much he’d gotten used to it. It feels like a gnawing ache to have Hannibal out of sight now, even when Will knows he’s just in the other room.

“Stop being such a baby,” he mutters to himself.

“Sorry?”

Will nearly jumps out of his skin, both at Hannibal’s voice and the sudden touch of a hand on his shoulder, neither of which he’d expected.

“You scared me. You’re so quiet when you move.” He shakes his head. “It’s nothing. I was just talking to myself.”

“Will.” Hannibal tugs one of his curls. His hair’s gotten long, so long his dad would’ve made him cut it by now, but Hannibal seems to like it. Will likes that Hannibal likes it. “Tell me.”

“The house is so big,” Will says. He winces at the way that sounds and immediately tries to backtrack. “I mean, I’m not complaining. It’s really nice, too. I like it here.”

“But?” Hannibal prompts gently.

“I like being close to you,” Will says finally. “I miss you when we’re not—” He swallows. “Did you do something to me?”

Hannibal blinks slowly. “What do you mean?”

Will starts across the room and doesn’t get far, not more than a few paces before he stops and walks back toward Hannibal, proving his own point. He drags a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Some kind of magic, something to make me feel—” He cuts himself off, frustrated. “Don’t make me say it.”

Hannibal touches his cheek gently. “Say it,” he murmurs. “Please. For me.”

“I want you,” Will says. “I want you all the time. I want to be close to you. I want to _see_ you. I want you to see me. I want to do things for you, terrible things.” He meets Hannibal’s eyes and imagines he can see the echo of burning hellfire in their dark depths. “Did you do that?”

“No,” Hannibal says, and Will can’t understand the way Hannibal looks at him. “No, that is something you did all on your own, _mylimasis. _I wonder that you could. Is it because of your father? Did he train you to love monsters?”

“I don’t want to talk about my dad,” Will says automatically. “What does it mean, that word you call me?”

“It means beloved. Sweetheart.”

“But you called me that when we first met.”

“So I did.”

Will is still too short to reach Hannibal’s mouth, so he tugs on the tie Hannibal’s taken to wearing. Hannibal lets himself be pulled down to Will’s level. He kneels, and the sight of it does something to Will, poking sticky fingers into parts of him that feel dark and strange. He tosses the thought aside and loses himself in this, crowding forward and kissing Hannibal until they’re both breathless.

He’s gotten better at it, and he feels a thrill of proud satisfaction when he coaxes a deep rumble from Hannibal’s chest. He nips at Hannibal’s bottom lip, quick and vicious, before soothing the hurt with his tongue.

“Dangerous, Will,” Hannibal murmurs into his skin.

“You or me?”

Hannibal smiles in a way that shows off all of his teeth. “Certainly you.”

* * *

Will wakes to the feeling of oppressive, visceral malice. It seems to press down on him like a tangible weight, and he comes back to consciousness gasping. He can’t move. At first he thinks it’s just Hannibal—that Hannibal has rolled onto him in the night, but Hannibal is at the other edge of the bed sleeping soundly.

He panics.

He can’t move. He can’t even scream.

He hears a woman’s voice, a woman’s laugh, full of malice in his ear. He hears her, but he can’t see her.

“Well, well. So you’re the reason Hannibal hasn’t come home. Let’s get a look at you, mortal. Sit up so I can see you.”

Suddenly he can move again.

“Hannibal,” he says. _“Hannibal.”_ He shakes his demon’s shoulder, and Hannibal rolls over and murmurs but doesn’t awaken. “Hannibal!”

“Hush, little one,” the sibilant voice says. “He can’t hear you. He sleeps. He will continue sleeping until I release him.”

“Who are you?” Will asks, crowding himself back against the headboard. “What are you?”

He looks around frantically, trying to find the source of the sound, but it seems to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once. It seems to come from right inside his own skull. He claps his hands over his ears and squeezes his eyes shut tight, but it does nothing to block out the tinkling sound of cruel laughter.

Soft hands pull at his wrists. “None of that now,” she says as she uncovers his ears.

Will’s eyes fly open at the sensation of skin against his, warm and living. A woman kneels before him, beautiful and pale. Dark hair cascades over her shoulders, and he’s struck by the fire that burns in her cold eyes.

She twists his head this way and that with a firm grip on his chin. “You’re barely more than a mouthful. I can see why he didn’t eat you.” She rips his shirt open with a black claw that looks like one of Hannibal’s in miniature—slender and deadly. “No bruises, no cuts. No gaping wounds for the maggots to nibble while they fester and rot. Hannibal really is sweet on you, isn’t he?” She leans closer, so that Will can see the glint of light off needle-like fangs. “I can’t imagine why. You aren’t much to look at.”

He shakes Hannibal’s shoulder harder, willing him to wake up. The woman keeps talking.

“And what about you, hmm? You let him take you into his bed and defile you. Don’t think we haven’t watched. What a pretty picture the pair of you make. _‘Hannibal! Hannibal, don’t stop.’”_ Her mimicry of his voice is so accurate, so inhuman and impossible that it makes him recoil. “Have you grown a taste for demons, boy? You know I could hurt you in ways he couldn’t even dream of.”

She trails her hand lower, toward the string of his pajama pants, and Will lashes out, kicking her and scrambling closer to Hannibal. “Don’t touch me.”

She laughs again. _“Fidelity. _God, how boring.”

The woman advances on him, baring her teeth in a snarl that lets him see every one of her sharp teeth. He squeezes his eyes shut tight against the heat of her breath on his face. She smells like jasmine, and below it the scent of meat and rot.

He doesn’t pray to God. He prays to Hannibal.

A strong hand tightens around his waist, and Will gasps. Hannibal sits up and wraps himself around Will. He’s dark as the air around them, looming large and menacing.

“Chiyoh,” he hisses. His voice sounds like gravel and broken glass.

She tilts her head. “Hannibal. It’s been too long.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to see with my own eyes if it’s true what they say about you. Do you know I defended you with teeth and claws? Do you know I told them that Hannibal would never do such a thing? _Hannibal_ would never take up with a human.” She spits. “And yet here you are. What are you doing, Hannibal? Playing house?”

She glares at the lamp perched on the nightstand, and it shatters in a spray of glass. Will gasps and tries to shrink into nothing.

“I didn’t ask you to defend me,” Hannibal says. “You’re free to do as you please.”

“Am I?” She reaches forward quick as lightning and scores a deep row of cuts down the side of Will’s face with her nails, one that barely misses his eye. He cries out and claps his hand over it, staunching the welling blood.

Hannibal roars and lunges forward, snapping Chiyoh’s arm in his jaws. His eyes burn bright, and dark blood drips from her pale arm in rivers. It sizzles as it touches the coverlet.

She laughs softly as she reaches out to touch Hannibal’s teeth with gentle fingers, at the place where their sharp points disappear into her flesh. “So that’s how it is. How little loyalty you have to me, Hannibal. All these millennia, and this is how it ends. I’m glad to know it.”

Hannibal doesn’t speak or move. There’s a moment where Will thinks he might rip Chiyoh’s arm clean off, but he lets her go with a final snarl and a vicious shake of his head that makes her cry out.

She clutches her bleeding arm to her chest. “They live for so short a time, Hannibal. Reconsider.”

There’s something in her eyes that looks uncomfortably like compassion, and then she’s gone.

Will stays very still in the aftermath. Blood seeps between his fingers and runs in rivulets down his arm. Hannibal isn’t someone he recognizes anymore. Will can still hear him growling. He can feel thick, consuming rage radiating from him in waves, filling the room and turning his stomach.

His face really hurts. He wants to go to bed.

He tugs on Hannibal’s arm. “Hannibal. Hannibal, I’m okay.”

Hannibal turns on him with a snarl, burning eyes and a gore-streaked face, and Will recoils. His heart hammers in his chest, and he wonders if he can make it to the door before Hannibal kills him.

He sees the moment recognition sparks in Hannibal’s eyes. He visibly shakes off whatever black mood had overtaken him, and when he touches Will’s face, his fingers are gentle, if taloned. He pulls Will’s hand away from his cheek and twines their fingers together, slippery and sticky with blood.

“I’m sorry, Will. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Will says. “My face hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” Hannibal says again. He pulls Will into his lap and cleans the blood off his face with gentle licks. It burns when Hannibal’s tongue dips into the deep grooves Chiyoh slashed into his cheek, and Hannibal soothes him with soft murmurs and a hand stroking over his back.

Chiyoh’s blood has burned a hole in the mattress, and Hannibal murmurs something about seeing to it in the morning. He changes the sheets while Will stands shivering in blood-flecked pajamas and tucks Will back into bed.

“Aren’t you coming to bed too?” Will asks when Hannibal stands up to go.

Hannibal shakes his head. “Not tonight, _mylimasis._ I fear I will be poor company. She won’t come back. You’re safe.”

“No, it’s not that,” Will says, although he burrows further into the blankets at the mention of her. He doesn’t want to be afraid.

“Another night,” Hannibal promises. He kisses Will’s forehead. “I won’t be far.”

He leaves before Will can protest. All night, the windowpanes rattle in their frames, and the house smells like sulfur. Will doesn’t sleep at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have my continued apologies for the lack of replies to comments. It's just weirdly hard to reply sometimes, for... I don't know, anxiety-brain reasons. I do intend to respond at some point! I've been reacquainted with the idea of "radical availability" and taking some baby steps toward plain old regular availability.

Eventually grey morning light filters through the sheer curtains on the windows. Their bedroom is always dim. It’s dim now, but enough sun finds its way inside to differentiate between day and night.

Will rolls out of bed aching and tired. He stumbles to the bathroom, where he gets the chance to look at the cut on his face. Angry red lines jag over the skin of his cheeks. It looks bad, weeping and open, and he doesn’t want to think about how much worse it must have looked last night. He wonders if it’ll scar and resolves to ask Hannibal later.

For now he peels off his nightshirt, which is worse off than he’d thought. There’s blood soaked all into the collar, trailing down the whole right side of the shirt. It’s stiff and crusty now. The vibrant red of fresh blood has faded into an unpleasant, ugly brown. He rinses it as best he’s able in the bathroom sink, watching as the cool water runs pink down the drain. When he’s gotten the shirt as clean as it’s going to get, he plugs the sink and fills it with clean water. He sets the shirt to soak and strips off the rest of his clothes.

The hot spray of the shower feels good against his skin. He turns it as hot as he can stand, until the water hitting his skin turns it red and steam billows into the air. When he finally gets out, it’s because he’s beginning to feel lightheaded from the heat.

The windows have stopped rattling, and when he emerges from the bathroom with his hair still dripping, it’s to the savory scent of meat frying. The smell makes his mouth water and his stomach gurgle, and he hurries up and yanks on clothes before racing down the stairs.

“Good morning,” Hannibal says when he sees Will.

He looks human again. His hair hangs softly over his forehead. He’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt that Will doesn’t think he’s seen yet. He smiles at Will, and something scared and tight in Will’s chest eases.

“Morning,” Will says, pulling up a seat at one of the stools pushed against the central island. “What’re you cooking? It smells really good.”

“Breakfast scramble,” Hannibal says, pressing a kiss to Will’s hair as he walks past. Will tilts his head up to catch Hannibal’s lips instead, and he succeeds in tasting the corner of Will’s smile. “Distracting,” Hannibal chides.

He gives Will a squeeze before pulling milk and eggs from the fridge.

The normalcy of it all finishes what the shower had started, all of it working together to soothe Will. He hadn’t realized how afraid he’d been, afraid that something might have changed between them. That something Chiyoh had said last night would have convinced Hannibal that Will wasn’t worth it—that he should go home after all.

“Where do you live?” Will asks while Hannibal cracks eggs into a bowl. “I mean where are you_ from?”_

It occurs to him that he doesn’t know what _home_ is to Hannibal. That he’d never thought to ask, or hadn’t wanted to know. He feels abruptly guilty for being so selfish.

“Somewhere you don’t have to think about,” Hannibal says.

Will frowns. “You don’t want to tell me. That’s not like you, you know. You always want to tell me things, even horrible things. _Especially_ horrible things.”

“Is it so unreasonable that I would want to spare you what I may?”

“Yes,” Will says automatically.

Hannibal _hmm_s but doesn’t say anything more. He whisks eggs in a pan, wearing the best poker face Will has ever seen. His expression doesn’t change at all as he spoons two portions onto china plates, so Will hazards a guess. “Hell?”

The question doesn’t make Hannibal falter. He sets one of the plates in front of Will and the other at the next place setting over. He fetches two glasses of orange juice from the fridge. “You’re incorrigible.”

“But I’m not wrong.”

“No,” Hannibal says, taking a bite of his food. “You’re not wrong.”

He doesn’t offer anything more but looks sidelong at Will’s wide eyes and upturned face.

“Eat your eggs before they get cold.”

Will does as he’s told—it’s second nature by now, doing what Hannibal tells him, and he doesn’t closely examine the reasons that may be. He doesn’t give it up, though.

“Chiyoh, then,” Will says around a mouthful of creamy eggs and salty meat. “Tell me about her.”

Hannibal sets his fork down, resting it tines-down against the edge of his plate and folding his hands. “What would you like to know?”

“Who is she? Why did she say all that stuff?” His brow furrows. “She talked to me while you were asleep, told me that she didn’t understand what you see in me.”

“Well, that’s not terribly surprising. She’s never been particularly imaginative.” Hannibal takes a sip of his coffee, unconcerned.

When it becomes clear that Hannibal isn’t going to say anything more, Will huffs. “I’m not a _baby,_ Hannibal. I’m old enough to know things.”

Something dark shifts behind Hannibal’s eyes, and Will momentarily feels a sense of vertigo, like he’s stepped on a land mine buried in the earth of whatever they are to each other. Then Hannibal leans back and sighs. The charge in the air dissipates, and the scent of ozone flees. “You might think of her as my sister.”

“Do demons have sisters?” Will asks, feeling like he’s foundering and trying desperately to bring his feet back onto solid ground.

“Yes and no. She told no lies—we have lived millennia at each other’s sides. She and I were both there at the beginning. It’s no small thing. She’s not wrong to be angry with me.” Hannibal twists Will’s head to turn his injured cheek to the light and rubs a thumb over the cuts there. His hand is gentle, but it hurts all the same. A small whimper falls from Will’s closed lips. “She was wrong to do this, though. Do you know I thought of killing her for it?”

“I thought you might.”

“Yes,” Hannibal murmurs thoughtfully. “So did I. It’s such a curious feeling. I want to strike down anyone that lays a finger on you. I want to strew their entrails over the lawn and bathe you in their blood.”

Will shivers with something that isn’t revulsion.

“Are you in trouble?” Will asks. “It sounded like you were maybe in trouble.”

It’s strange to think of Hannibal answering to anyone, unsettling in a way Will doesn’t entirely like.

“Chiyoh won’t have said anything to anyone that matters, regardless of how angry she may be. The others—” He shakes his head. “Don’t concern yourself with it, _mylimasis._ How would you like to go to the park today?”

“Okay.”

* * *

Will likes the park. Sometimes there are dogs there. There are no dogs today, but there’s the scent of freshly-cut grass and the sun that shines warm on his face. The park near their house boasts a playground made from pretty, well-kept wood. It’s so much different from any of the playgrounds Will grew up with, and he wonders how it stays so nice. There’s no graffiti to be seen anywhere, no one smoking pot under the slide.

The breeze is warm and light. It barely stirs the leaves of the trees as it blows. It teases the hairs curling around the nape of Will’s neck, moving them just enough to tickle.

After a while, Hannibal stops to sit on a bench, and Will sits beside him without a second thought. He watches the other kids on the playground, running and laughing. Some of them are about Will’s age, some much younger. There are a few infants playing in the shade of a tree, cooing together while their mothers look on from a nearby bench. One of them tries to toddle over to his mother on wobbly legs. He makes it halfway before falling. He starts to cry, and Will winces in sympathy, even as the baby’s mother hurries to comfort him.

Hannibal watches with curious eyes.

“You don’t want to go play with children your own age?”

“I don’t think any of them want to play with me,” Will says.

“Why not?”

Will shrugs. “I don’t know. Other kids usually don’t like me very much. They think I’m _weird.”_

He expects Hannibal to contradict him, but he doesn’t.

“There’s nothing wrong with being weird.”

“Says the demon.”

Hannibal laughs. “Yes, says the demon.”

* * *

Will has been in strange spirits since Chiyoh paid them a visit. He keeps to himself, mostly answering Hannibal’s attempts to engage him in conversation with monosyllabic responses. He’s withdrawn in a way Hannibal doesn’t think is usual, and yet he hates when Hannibal is out of his sight. He follows Hannibal from room to room like a quiet, sullen shadow, and Hannibal doesn’t know what to do about it.

The child’s pain hurts him. It’s a strange and uncomfortable feeling. Hannibal isn’t built for care. The urge to rend Will’s enemies limb from limb makes sense—it’s a natural extension of his own drive to corrupt and harm, to maim and lay waste. But there’s something else—something stranger and altogether less familiar. He finds himself compelled to tend the child’s wounds, to nourish him with sustenance, to ease his heart when he’s sad.

Hannibal can be nothing but what he is, so he does it imperfectly. Nevertheless, he tries. He _wants_ to try.

Will is sad today. Worse still, he’s _hiding_ it from Hannibal, as if there could be any secrets between them. The round curve of his cheek is wet and shining in the light. Hannibal sees it before Will manages to turn away.

“Will?”

He sniffles and stands up abruptly. “I’m tired. I’m going to go take a nap.”

Silence descends in the wake of Will’s departure. Hannibal can hear the tick of the grandfather clock in the hall, but even so, everything is so muffled in this human body. He wonders how any of them bear it.

_Tick, tick, tick._

It’s hardly a decision at all to stand up and start up the stairs; Where Will goes, he follows. When he opens the door to the bedroom, it’s clear that Will isn’t sleeping. He’s lying with his back to the door so Hannibal can’t see his face, but the rise and fall of his small ribcage is quick and shallow.

Hannibal closes the door as gently as he’s able. Even so, Will huffs when Hannibal sits on the edge of the bed.

“You’re upset.”

“No,” Will says. He turns to smear his face into the pillow, wiping away tears that Hannibal can still smell on him. “It’s nothing.”

“Lies,” Hannibal says, but he can’t help but smile.

He picks Will up—tiny, light as a doll—despite squirming protests. He cradles Will in his lap, all elbows, gangly legs and surly, radiant anger. Hannibal sticks his tongue out to taste the dried salt under Will’s eyes. The pain lingering in the echoes of his tears is thrilling despite everything. Hannibal licks him from jaw to cheek, and again on the other side.

“Hannibal,” Will complains, trying to push him away.

He’s struggling, but not very hard. Hannibal puts his hand on Will’s chest to feel the fragile bones there, lightweight and still so very thin. Perhaps Hannibal needs to feed him more; even as he thinks it, he tucks the thought away for another time.

“You’re not tired,” Hannibal observes. “You’re sad.”

Will shrugs, which is quickly becoming Hannibal’s least favorite expression of his. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Hannibal grins in a way that shows all his sharp teeth, because he knows it scares Will as much as it excites him. “I don’t want you to talk about it.”

Talk isn’t what he’s offering—not today. He drags his hand down, letting Will feel the prick of his nails. He doesn’t press hard enough to puncture the skin, just enough to raise cherry-colored welts. His claws catch on the fabric of Will’s shirt, and he tugs at the hem.

“Take this off,” he mouths against Will’s ear.

Will grabs the bottom of his shirt and yanks it over his head, baring a skinny chest to the still air of their bedroom. It’s late afternoon, but the sun is still good. Everything is painted in ochre hues, and Will’s chest flushes so prettily under his gaze.

It fascinates him how quick Will is to comply, how readily he turns himself to anything that Hannibal asks of him. It’s dangerous for Will, delightful for Hannibal. He wonders what else he might make Will do.

He scratches his nails over Will’s chest again, catching a delicate pink nipple in the process. Will’s gasp is beautiful.

“Will you make yourself cry for me?” Hannibal asks.

He’s testing the edges of what Will would do for him; he knows this. It’s a terrible impulse, and yet so compelling.

“How?” Will asks, breathless and trusting.

“However you like,” Hannibal says. He kisses the tip of Will’s nose just to watch his eyelashes flutter shut.

Will thinks for a minute, biting his lip before slipping out of Hannibal’s lap, quick as a minnow. Hannibal lets him go, curious as to what he’ll do. Will’s feet are nearly silent when they touch the ground, and he quickly strips out of his remaining clothes. His shorts and boxers fall to the floor in short order. He hesitates.

“I’ll be right back.”

Hannibal inclines his head, and Will slips through the door and into the hallway, silent as a ghost. Hannibal tips his head back and waits, wholly content to inhabit his anticipation. He doesn’t open his eyes until he feels the mattress depress under a small weight. Will clambers back onto the bed with a drinking glass in hand, so heartbreakingly careful not to spill. He wonders if Will was beaten for spilling liquids—the thought lights a rage in him. It makes Hannibal want to protect Will; it makes him want to beat Will bloody.

The glass is a quarter-full of gleaming amber liquid, and the pungent aroma curls itself around Hannibal’s nostrils. A terrible smile slicks itself over his face at the smell.

Will presses the glass into Hannibal’s hand. “Drink.”

“Clever boy,” Hannibal says, stroking the side of his darling’s face, curbing the urge to hit. He downs the liquor in one neat gulp, savoring the belated burn as it warms his throat. Liquor is one of the finer inventions humans have wrought, for its flavor as well as its destructive potential.

Will takes the glass back and sets it on the nightstand. He crawls over to Hannibal and touches the seam of his pants tentatively.

“Will you take these off?” he asks

“Of course.”

Hannibal reaches for his belt but can’t resist leaning forward to capture Will’s mouth in a kiss. Will kisses back more hesitant than usual. Hannibal doesn’t miss the stuttering hitch in his breath as he tastes the whiskey on Hannibal’s tongue. He wants to lick the sounds right out of Will’s mouth, but he pulls back to do as Will asks, lifting his hips to push his pants down, pulling them off one leg, then the other. He reaches for the buttons on his shirt, but Will stops him.

“No?”

“No, leave it on.”

Will looks absolutely terrified. It’s delicious.

He spits on his fingers and reaches behind himself to spread it around. Hannibal watches with rapt fascination as Will crouches above him, rising up on his knees and using his hand to guide Hannibal’s cock to his entrance. Hannibal can feel it twitching around him, small and tight. He’s enraptured by the look of concentration on Will’s face.

Will sinks down without mercy, the tight, dry heat of his body opening to take Hannibal inside. His face contorts into something beautiful and pained, and he cries out as he sinks down until his bare bottom is sitting flush against Hannibal’s thighs.

He raises himself up again on trembling legs and drops back down. The friction of it is uncomfortable for Hannibal, and he can only imagine the exquisite agony it must be for Will.Will rides him with a sloppy enthusiasm that’s utterly endearing, working himself on Hannibal’s cock with ragged breaths and harsh whimpers.

“Tell me I’m pretty,” Will pants.

Hannibal bucks up into Will, hard and sharp and just right to punch a wounded wail out of him.

He flips them over without warning, so Will is trapped beneath him. He leans to heavily on Will’s small frame, clumsy and careless like a drunken man might be. He leans in close so Will can smell the whiskey on his breath.

“So pretty,” Hannibal says. “Such a pretty boy, the way you open for me.”

Will shakes his head, squinting his eyes shut as tears leak from the sides of them, running down his temples to dampen his hair. “You’re wrong,” he says. “Whore. Stupid slut, was just _asking_ for it.”

Even this is beautiful. Hannibal fucks him through it, cruel and merciless, drinking up his pain like wine. Tears pour down Will’s face freely now, and that strange impulse—the part of Hannibal’s soul that doesn’t belong, the one that quails when Will cries—prompts him to still his hips. He props himself up on his elbows, holding his weight off Will, just for a moment.

_“Mylimasis,_ do you want me to stop?”

Will sobs harder and shakes his head so fiercely Hannibal is afraid he might injure something.

Hannibal fucks him until his hiccuping cries turn soft and needy, until he pushes back against Hannibal’s cock and writhes his hips and falls apart so sweetly. He lets Hannibal keep going long after he’s come, long after his oversensitive body flinches at every touch.

“Gorgeous,” Hannibal says. “My beautiful, perfect boy. I’ll clear all the skeletons from your mind until no one can hurt you but me.”

“You can’t.”

Hannibal growls and lets his human facade slip away, digging his talons into Will’s shoulders, the same talons that have so often stripped muscle from bone and punched out the eyes of heathens. His eyes bore into Will’s, orange and bright. “I certainly will. I’ll make you free of him. Of all of them.” He sinks his claws deeper and reddest blood pours into the sheets. “Do you believe me?”

Will gasps. “Yes! Yes, I believe.”

Hannibal doesn’t know if Will means it or if pain loosens his tongue. He’s satisfied either way. Unlike God, he doesn’t require true belief. He’s not cruel enough to demand unwavering faith. The right actions will do.

He’d preserve this moment in amber if he could—all of them, every moment with Will, for whatever time his gnat-like lifespan will allow it. He wants to give this child _everything._

It ends too soon, as everything human is wont to do.

“How do you feel?” Hannibal asks after, cradling Will’s small, breakable body against his own. He lets some of the infernal fire inside him bleed through, reaching Will even through the skins that separate them. He’s gratified when Will sighs and molds himself more tightly to the curve of Hannibal’s side, seeking comfort in dangerous lands.

Will props his chin on an elbow to watch at Hannibal. “Hollow,” he says. “Clean.” He reaches between them to grasp Hannibal’s soft penis, to grip it too tight and Hannibal wince. His eyes are swollen and sleepy, lit with a cruelty that Hannibal adores through and through. “How do you feel?”

Hannibal has to think about it. He doesn’t think he’s been asked that question before.

“Happy, I think.”

Will nods. “Me too.” He rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “It’s a weird feeling.”

“Indeed.”

It really, really is.


	6. Chapter 6

Will starts spending a lot of time in the library, especially once he finds the occult books in the world religions section. The Enoch Pratt Free Library is huge, way bigger than any other library he’s ever seen. It’s fancy, too, in the same way Hannibal’s house is fancy—the way _their_ house is fancy. It’s a huge stone building with a tall arch above the entryway. The interior is full of high ceilings that make the sound of footfalls echo when he steps on the slick, shiny floor. There are ornate columns holding up an upper level, and hanging lights bathe everything in a warm glow.

Hannibal has started spending most days outside of the house—researching, he says. Refining his person suit. Will doesn’t know exactly where he goes or what he does, but he has a pretty good idea. Rather than spend his time alone in their house, he’s taken to spending it here.

Most of the librarians leave him alone. He keeps to himself, stays quiet and doesn’t cause a fuss, and they’re happy to leave him alone at a long table surrounded by piles of books or alternately, curled up on one of the arm chairs, reading. Today he’s at the table, scribbling notes in a notebook he’d purchased with the allowance Hannibal has started giving him. He turns the page and chews the end of his pen.

He’s so lost in thought that he startles when one of the younger librarians comes by one day, glancing at his stack of books. _The Encyclopedia of Demons and Demonology _is sitting atop the pile, and she picks it up to examine the cover. She has pink hair and a nice smile.

“This stuff isn’t boring to you?” She asks. “We’ve got a bunch of fiction books in the young adult section, you know. Graphic novels too. You might like it better.”

Will shakes his head. “No, ma’am. I’m not bored.”

Her smile deepens. She has dimples, he notices. “Well alright then. I’ll leave you to it.”

Will nods absently, already back to paging through the book in front of him.

* * *

She comes back the next day, when Will has taken up residence in his customary spot in the back of the least crowded wing of the library.

“You really like to read, huh? I think I see you in here everyday.”

“Most days, yeah. I like it here.”

“It’s nice to see someone your age so into books. Here, I brought you this: Dante’s _Inferno.”_ She nods toward his ever-present pile of books. “You seem to like the spooky stuff, so I thought you might want to try a classic. Ordinarily I’d think it was a little hard for someone your age, but I think you can handle it.”

She passes him a book with a conspiratorial wink. The cover of it is painted with orange flames. Naked figures prostrate themselves while a sneering black demon lords over them with a spear. The demon doesn’t look anything like Hannibal—it looks silly while Hannibal is sleek and powerful—but the image makes Will catch his breath all the same. Memories simmer under the surface.

“Thank you,” Will says, bringing himself back to the present.

“Don’t mention it,” the librarian says before leaving him to his reading.

* * *

Mrs. Brown—he learns that’s her name—is kind to Will and occasionally brings him books she thinks he’ll like. She’s usually right. She brings him some fascinating books about witchcraft and magic. Sometimes she even sneaks him little candies and clucks over him being all skin and bones.

“My dad says the same,” Will says. It’s only a little weird calling Hannibal his dad. He doesn’t think of Hannibal as his dad, but he knows there’s nothing else he could call him that wouldn’t raise alarm bells, so it will have to do. He shows Mrs. Brown the lunch Hannibal had packed him early that morning—a sandwich on rye filled with meat, fresh cheese and crispy homemade pickles, with a pear and potato salad on the side.

“Well, good,” she says, favoring him with a fond smile. “I’m glad someone is feeding you, a charming young man like yourself. Someone ought to look after you.”

The praise brings a faint blush to his cheeks, but it makes him feel proud all the same.

Unfortunately, not all the librarians are so nice. One librarian in particular never misses the opportunity to give Will the evil eye. Mrs. Aldrich wears plaid dresses and glasses, and she always smells too much like flowers. Hannibal would hate her, Will thinks to himself. He hates her too. She makes him feel the way he felt back home—like he’s dirty in a way everyone could see. Like he’s nothing more than a _mistake._

He’s polite anyway, because adults like that.

“Shouldn’t you be in school, young man?” She asks him on a Wednesday afternoon.

“No, ma’am. I’m homeschooled. This is part of my study program.” The lie floats easily from his tongue.

He doesn’t think she believes it—she looks skeptical even as she turns away—but she doesn’t bother him for the rest of the day, and that’s good enough for Will.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that she leaves him alone on subsequent days. She always seems to be floating on the edges of his periphery now, watching him with disapproving eyes and a downturned mouth. He worries that she’ll call the cops on him for truancy, but not for the reason she probably thinks he does.

Will isn’t worried that he’ll get in trouble. He and Hannibal had never actually bothered to discuss his schooling. He instinctively knows that Hannibal doesn’t want him around other people. That Hannibal doesn’t want him somewhere where he can’t easily access Will, and the feeling is mutual—but he knows that Hannibal would corroborate his story all the same. No, he’s more worried that instead of helping Will talk his way out of trouble, Hannibal would slaughter anyone who so much as looked at him sideways. Will is afraid he wouldn’t mind that as much as he should.

So he hopes Mrs. Aldrich doesn’t call the police to have him removed, so he doesn’t have to find out if his suspicions are correct, and so far she hasn’t.

It’s nearing closing time, and the PA system alerts all library patrons that they should check out or replace their library materials and proceed to the nearest exit. Will isn’t quite finished with his book yet. It’s a book on Satanic rituals that’s started an idea brewing in the very back of his mind. He isn’t quite sure what the idea is yet, but he’s certain he could figure it out with a bit more time, so he takes the book to the circulation desk to borrow it

Mrs. Aldrich is working behind the desk today, and Will grits his teeth as she scans his book and library card and _harrumphs._

“Isn’t this book a little adult for you?” she asks.

“Research project,” Will lies.

For a moment he’s afraid that she won’t let him check it out, but she stamps it with a due date and holds it out to him anyway. He goes to take it, but she won’t let go.

“Do you go to church, young man?” she asks. She’s staring him down in a way that makes him feel uncomfortable.

“No,” he says bluntly. He tugs the book harder, until it pulls free of her grasp. He doesn’t look at her again, but he can feel her eyes as he busies himself tucking the book into his backpack and zipping it up tight.

* * *

Hannibal is waiting for him when he gets home. Will can hear him in the kitchen. He can smell the scent of something delicious simmering on the stove. He drops his bookbag by the door and immediately goes to join Hannibal.

“Will,” Hannibal says, voice full of obvious pleasure when he turns to see Will there. His hands are covered in flour, but he wraps his arms around Will all the same, careful to hold his dirty hands away from Will’s shirt—not that Will would’ve minded Hannibal getting him dirty. “How was your day?”

“Good,” Will says. “I went to the library again.”

He considers telling Hannibal about Mrs. Aldrich. It would feel good, he knows. It would feel good to vent his frustrations, to lay them at Hannibal’s feet. He wouldn’t ask Hannibal to do anything about it. He wouldn’t need to, and he knows that. Hannibal would do something about it whether Will wanted it or not. He’s already been vocal in his desire to protect Will, to kill for him.

“What did you do today?” Will asks.

“I inquired after an opening at a private psychiatric practice.”

Will washes his hands at the sink and fits himself beside Hannibal. Hannibal moves over to tend to the chicken breasts that are currently marinating in some dark liquid. He pulls them out and dredges them in a mixture of flour and breadcrumbs flecked with pepper and herbs. Will takes over where Hannibal left off, neatly gliding the knife through a pile of peeled potatoes. Hannibal’s knives are always sharp.

They work around each other without colliding, reaching behind a back here, gently shifting the other by the hips there. When Will is finished with the potatoes, Hannibal takes them and pours them into a pot of boiling water before setting the chicken to fry in a pan of heated, golden oil on the stove. They move around each other with the ease of familiarity.

“You’re getting really good at that,” Will says, nodding at the stove. The savory scent has only intensified, and now the whole kitchen smells amazing.

“Practice makes perfect,” Hannibal says, and Will wrinkles his nose to hear such a boring, human phrase come out of Hannibal’s mouth. He’s been practicing platitudes lately, all part of the construction on his human suit.

“I enjoy cooking. It’s a very human form of magic. Elemental, even—to transform something from one form to another using nothing but fire and steel.”

“I never thought about it that way,” Will says, propping his elbows on the counter.

He thinks of transformations, of magic. He thinks about the book in his backpack and wonders if he should tell Hannibal about it. Hannibal doesn’t know how much hell and its demons have preoccupied Will’s studies in the last few months. Will tells himself that he hasn’t brought it up because Hannibal hasn’t asked, but even in his head, it rings false. After all, he tells Hannibal all sorts of things without being asked. Just, not this.

Hannibal turns the chicken breast in the pan with his fingers—an action that makes Will gasp instinctively, even as he remembers that things that would hurt a normal person are unlikely to hurt Hannibal.

Will shakes his head and pulls a spatula out of the drawer all the same. “Not like that. One of these days someone’s going to see you and ask questions.”

He holds the spatula out until Hannibal reaches for it, then pulls it away at the last moment in a childish game of keep-away. Hannibal quirks an eyebrow at him, but his face softens into something altogether different when Will leans forward and sucks one of Hannibal’s grease-covered fingers into his mouth. He tastes like salt and skin, like breadcrumbs and the marinade the chicken has been soaking in.

He licks the taste away and sucks Hannibal’s finger down to the base of the knuckle, watching with satisfaction as Hannibal’s eyes grow dark and hungry. Hannibal draws his finger out of Will’s mouth and pushes back in with a second finger, slow and deliberate. Will sucks on them both, holding eye contact even when Hannibal shoves them as far back as they’ll go, until they touch the back of Will’s throat and make him gag.

His eyes are watering when Hannibal finally pulls his hand back. Hannibal smiles. He wipes his fingers on his apron and takes the spatula from Will, who hands it over with numb fingers.

“Hannibal,” Will breathes, sounding lost and needy.

“Yes?” Hannibal asks, perfectly guileless in a way that’s not even a little genuine, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He flips the second piece of chicken, dutifully using the spatula as instructed. It sizzles as it hits the pan.

Will leans into him, seeking out heat and friction, and Hannibal moves away. He crosses the kitchen to remove the pot from the stove, dumping the boiled potatoes into a colander waiting in the sink. He picks up the searing metal pot with his bare hands, and Will barely notices, too distracted to tell him to use the potholders.

“Will?”

_Fuck me on the counter and let dinner burn. Cut me open and glue me back together again._

Will wants it, but he doesn’t want to say it. Not today. Not with the sticky feeling of his past clinging to him in shades of mistake, slut, whore. He thinks of the way the librarian had looked at him, and he thinks of his dad. He shouldn’t _have_ to say it, and it’s not fair.

He stomps into the dining room and sets the table, letting the plates and silverware clatter against the shiny, dark wood. He hopes it scratches. He hopes he breaks something. Hannibal smiles all the while.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've missed these two! This chapter is short for POV reasons, but I want to spend a lot more time in this verse in the future. From here on out, I plan to work on this fic exclusively until it's done, so updates should come a lot faster now. <3

It’s unfortunate that Hannibal has figured out a new and interesting way to torment Will—unfortunate for Will, not for Hannibal. For Hannibal, it’s endlessly entertaining.

Hannibal has learned that if he doesn’t seek Will out for sex, if he turns down Will’s advances, Will becomes increasingly desperate. He does the most interesting, devastating things when Hannibal lets it go on for long enough. He gets upset, stomping around the house and growling at Hannibal in a way he’s sure Will thinks is threatening but doesn’t manage to be anything so much as _cute._ He loves to see the glint of aggression in Will’s eyes. Hannibal wonders if Will would eventually be moved to violence, and he finds that he hopes so.

He gets his answer late one night, when he’s fast asleep.

Sleep—that’s something new, too. Hannibal sleeps more in this form. He must expend energy to continue wearing a human skin, a constant slow burn like a furnace, and he finds that the circadian rhythms of the body eventually begin to feel like his own. It’s not uncommon for him to sleep all through the night until morning, but not tonight.

Tonight he awakens with a small frame atop him. It’s almost pitch black in the room. Only the barest sliver of light peeks out from beneath the heavy curtains. Even so, Hannibal’s eyes are more attuned to the dark than any human’s will ever be. He can see the feral set of Will’s jaw, the grit of his teeth.

Will is still delicate and light, small for his age, although he’s started to fill out since Hannibal’s been feeding him. Will is kneeling over him, knees on either side of Hannibal’s chest. It feels like being pinned down by a feather. He’s got his little hands around Hannibal’s throat.

He digs his fingertips into Hannibal’s skin, nails threatening to puncture fragile flesh.

“What do you want?” He growls. “Why are you doing this to me? Do you want me to beg for it?” He leans all his weight forward, cutting off Hannibal’s air completely. No hesitation and no remorse. “Are you that kind of pervert? _Oh, daddy, please put your big cock in my little asshole.” _His voice turns breathy and mocking. He is all sharp edges, and Hannibal has never loved him more.

Hannibal grins and flips them over neatly. He gets his own hand around Will’s throat and chokes him until he can feel the delicate cartilage shifting in his grip.

“I don’t care about that. I want this. Your anger. Your violence.”

“Why?” Will gasps. The word is more breath than speech, forced out without any air to support it.

“Because it makes you so beautiful.”

He lets Will go. He sees the moment the light of comprehension dawns in his eyes. And then Will darts forward and takes a bite out of Hannibal’s shoulder. The flesh tears away, livid and raw. His blood stains Will’s teeth black in the moonlight. It’d be black in the daylight too.

Hannibal doesn’t care if Will asks or if he doesn’t. He doesn’t care if Will _uses his words._ All he wants is this—endless permutations of it, for as long as time will allow.

He gives Will everything he’d asked for and more.

* * *

Will spends more time alone these days, and Hannibal is glad to see his confidence growing. He blooms like a fern, unfurling by slow degrees. Hannibal loves to watch the darkness in him take root and grow.

Hannibal, too, is growing. He spends most days out among the masses, learning. Refining his camouflage. He’d gotten a job as a psychiatrist, and it had barely required any infernal influence on his part at all. People are so ready to be charmed, so ill-prepared to recognize a wolf in their midst.

Well, some. Not all.

The man sitting across from him now seems well aware. He knows he’s in a small space with something very dangerous, even if he couldn’t put it into words. The sensitive ones are always like this—there’s a vague sense of unease, a chill running down their spine. The hairs standing up on the back of their neck for no reason they could name.

Hannibal uncrosses his legs, crosses them in the other direction, and smiles. His client swallows nervously.

It would be easy to eat him, Hannibal considers. To rend flesh from bone, leaving nothing but a dripping, ruby carcass for the cleaning staff to find. It’s tempting, but only fleetingly. He prefers to stalk bigger game. He considers Will, considers the bright-burning rage and violence within him. He thinks on how badly he wants to draw it out.

They live such small lives that end so soon. If Hannibal spares a few humans—a few or many, who’s counting?—if he puts off other duties in pursuit of a higher goal. If he changes his nature for the love of Will Graham, well. It’s only for a little while.

He turns a polite smile on Mr. Miller, the man having a dull breakdown in the armchair opposite him. His pain is so mundane. So utterly uninteresting.

“I just feel like I can’t connect with her, you know? I love her, and she says she still loves me, but I can tell she doesn’t. It’s something— I can see it in her eyes. I know that sounds crazy, but I look at her. I look at her, and I see the way she looks at me, and I just _know._ It’s like she hates me. Like she can’t even _see_ me, and I don’t know how I can stand it.”

“Have you spoken to your wife about your feelings?”

“Of course I have. She just tells me there’s nothing to worry about. That she loves me.” He makes a frustrated sound. “But I have eyes, you know? I can _see.”_

Hannibal glances at the clock across the room. “I’m afraid that’s all the time we have for today. Until next week, I would encourage you to try to examine the source of your insecurities.” He holds out a box of tissues, and Greg takes one, sniffling. “Do you need a moment to compose yourself?”

“No, no, I’m fine. Thank you, Doctor Lecter.” Greg blows his nose loudly in a way that sets Hannibal’s teeth on edge. He can feel them threatening to lengthen and keeps his lips firmly sealed.

“It’s what I’m here for,” Hannibal says with a polite smile.

He ushers Greg out through the small waiting room, red-eyed but seemingly feeling better for having unburdened himself. Another patient waits to be shown in—early to her appointment. He appreciates punctuality, but he never particularly likes it when they’re _early._

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Hannibal tells her and she nods before disappearing back into her phone.

He walks back into the office and closes the door behind him. The decor isn’t to his taste. He shares it with two of his colleagues, who utilize the space when he isn’t present, and the style seems to be an amalgam of both their preferences, a mishmash of aesthetics that’s both jarring and unpleasant. The room is airy and bright, cheerful in a way that makes Hannibal want to roll his eyes. There’s no sense of drama to it. Even so, this practice is as good a place as any to learn.

He sits down at his desk to jot down a few notes about Mr. Miller’s progress. His thoughts turn to Will, and he smiles.


	8. Chapter 8

A plan does coalesce as he spends time with the book. He reads it during the day, after Hannibal’s left for work—Hannibal _works_ now, and Will doesn’t like it. Some days he imagines telling Hannibal not to go. To stay here, with Will. He selfishly doesn’t want anyone else to get any of Hannibal.

But he wants to read his book, and he can’t do it with Hannibal in the house, so he bites his tongue and doesn’t say a word.

After Hannibal is gone, after his steps have faded down the stairs and his car starts up and pulls away, Will waits a while longer. He waits until he’s absolutely, positively sure Hannibal isn’t coming back for something he’s forgotten—a briefcase, his lunch. Hannibal is forgetful, sometimes. It’s surprising, the way it always is when Hannibal does something that seems _human._ As if he’s somehow on Will’s level after all—someone he can touch, and love, and hold.

This is the first thing he’s ever hidden from Hannibal, and he’s not sure why he feels like he has to. This is _for_ Hannibal, after all. A surprise, he tells himself. That’s all it is. It’s a surprise, and that’s why Hannibal can’t know about it, not until it’s time. That would ruin the whole thing.

The sky’s been grey all day, in a twilight that can’t decide if it wants to be day or night.

Will lies sprawled out on the sofa, bare feet kicking at the air as he turns the pages. There are rituals in here, dark magics that promise life and power, questions answered and protection won, and all of it for a price. Will doesn’t mind paying in blood. He doesn’t mind, but those things—none of them are what he really wants. He doesn’t want to be free. He wants to own and be owned, forever.

He picks a binding spell, one that will tie his soul to Hannibal’s.

“Forever.” He mouths the word, lets it send a shiver through him in all its rightness. God never wanted him, but Hannibal did. Let him be Hannibal’s instead.

Hannibal isn’t supposed to be home for a while yet, but maybe Will’s lost track of the time. All he knows is that the door opens when he’s not expecting it, and he shoves his book between the couch cushions. He doesn’t bother sitting up, just stretches out, lying back against the couch as the measured click of Hannibal’s shoes announces his entry into the living room.

Will opens his eyes as if he’s been taking a nap.

“You’re home early,” he says. He doesn’t have to try in order to sound like he’s just woke up. His voice sounds husky to his own ears.

He gets like this when Hannibal is near, eager and wanting. He wants to fight it less and less. Wants to press into it and take what he wants—whatever he wants.

“My last appointment was canceled.” Hannibal’s lips pull down at the corners—annoyance at the inconvenience. He drifts over to the couch and looks down at Will, cocking his head like a hound listening for a sound in the distance. He runs a cool hand over the side of Will’s face, pushing up his hair to feel his forehead. “You’re warm. Flushed.” Will leans into the touch. “Are you unwell?”

Will swallows and shakes his head. His heart jackrabbits in his chest. “I missed you,” he says, and it isn’t a lie.

Hannibal studies Will’s face. There’s a moment where Will thinks Hannibal might call him on it, might see it on his face somehow, what Will is hiding. That he might pull the book from behind the couch and ferret out every last one of Will’s secrets.

The moment passes.

Hannibal smiles at Will, affectionate and so much softer than a demon ought to be able to manage, and it makes Will feel warm all over.

* * *

It seems like it should be harder to gather all the supplies for a Satanic ritual. In the end, it’s shockingly simple. They even have most of the supplies in the house.

_Of course you do, stupid. You’re living with a demon._

Will takes the carton of salt and a knife from the kitchen. The book asked for silver, but he doesn’t know where to find a silver knife, so he hopes stainless steel will do. He needs ashes, which he scoops out of the fireplace and into a Ziploc bag. The soot stains his fingers, and he keeps his hands in his pocket for the rest of the day, hoping Hannibal won’t ask questions about his blackened fingertips. He buys chalk at the dollar store and borrows five of the taper candles Hannibal uses for fancy dinners. Hannibal will notice that they’re gone eventually, but by then it won’t matter.

The book says the ritual needs to be performed at midnight, under the light of a full moon. He wonders if timezones matter. (What timezone is hell in, anyway?) He considers tossing that part out too—it would be easier to do the ritual when Hannibal is at work, but he’s already cutting corners with the kitchen knife, so he thinks better of it.

The full moon happens on a Friday. Will goes to bed that night full of anxious anticipation. Hannibal must sense it on some level because he fucks Will hard, driving every thought out of his head except the points where their bodies meet.

Will fights off sleep, forcing his heavy eyelids open again and again, and biting his lip when he feels himself drifting off. He waits until Hannibal is asleep before trying to work himself free from the arm that lies heavy around his waist. He slides himself carefully toward the foot of the bed, breath catching in his throat as Hannibal’s grip tightens. Will goes stock still, but Hannibal doesn’t wake up. He mumbles something in his sleep, something Will can’t quite pick out, and pulls him closer.

Will counts all the way to fifty. He takes a deep breath and wriggles out of Hannibal’s grasp, setting his bare feet down on the floor as quietly as he’s able.

The pale tile floor is bitingly cold wherever his feet touch it, even in the warmth of the house. He pads to the bedroom door and swings it open gently. He closes it deliberately, aware of every tiny creak that sounds too loud in the silent house. He eases the doorknob shut, not daring to let go until he feels the tension give.

In the hallway, he breathes a small sigh of relief before climbing up to the attic.

He’d stashed his supplies up there earlier, and they’re waiting for him now. He turns on the electric lantern that they keep in case the power goes out and sets it out of the way. There’s plenty of room in the attic. Whoever owned the house before them didn’t leave anything up here when they moved, and he and Hannibal haven’t been living here long enough to accumulate _stuff._

Will thinks of the stack of old newspapers his dad kept for kindling, the beer bottles that would be recycled for a nickel a pop, the hand-me-downs from his cousins, stuffed in the closet for when Will got bigger. All of it burned in the fire. He feels a pang in his chest and wraps his arms around his knees, breathing harsh breaths through his nose until the urge to cry passes.

A few tears sneak through anyway, and Will dashes them away with his hands, impatient with himself. Embarrassed even though there’s no one to see.

He grabs the chalk and picks a spot in front of the window, where the full moon shines above the trees and bathes the floorboards in an eerie blue light. It’s cold here. Will wishes he’d thought to bring a jacket or a blanket. He hadn’t dared to take the time to find clothes when sneaking out of the bedroom, and it turns out being naked here isn’t nearly as comfortable as being naked in the rest of the house.

He’ll just have to hurry, then. The sooner he starts, the sooner he can finish, and then he can go back downstairs with Hannibal. He draws a pentagram on the floor. The lines are shaky, but they grow more confident as he goes. He isn’t sure how big it’s supposed to be. The book didn’t say, so he just makes it as big as he can without having to move. He sets four candles in their places to the north, south, east, and west of the pentagram, taking care not to smudge any of his lines.

He sets the last candle aside for now, taking the salt and carefully drawing a big circle around himself and the pentagram. Salt for protection. It’s not like he needs to be protected from Hannibal, but Will wants to do everything right. He takes a match and lights the last candle, touching it to each of the other four in turn, watching as their wicks catch and burn. He sets the last candle in the center of the pentagram.

A fifth candle for spirit and soul.

He dips his fingers into the little bowl full of ash and draws the symbol for demonic possession on the dusty floorboards beneath the candle, where black wax is already starting to drip. Then he flips the book open to a dog-eared page and starts to read.

His southern-bred tongue trips over the unfamiliar Latin words, stumbling in parts, but he keeps going, determined to see this through.

He expects something to happen. Anything, really. For the sky to darken or the windows to rattle. For the wind to howl outside. None of it does. All that happens is his knees start to ache where they’re pressed against the rough wood of the attic floor. All that happens is his teeth start to chatter as he finishes the incantation.

Nothing happens, so he tries again. The book said that intention matters the most. He _wants_ it, so he isn't sure why it’s not working. He draws breath to try for a third time when he feels it. The air shifts, growing syrup-thick and choking him on the visceral feeling of _hate._ Will gasps, clawing at his throat.

“Hello there, little one.” He hears the smirk in Chiyoh’s voice, malicious and sweet, before he sees the points of her fang-lined grin. She steps up to the outer edge of his salt circle, and he’s fervently grateful that he’d thought to draw one at all. “Let’s get a look at you, shall we? You’ve grown since last we spoke.” She crouches on his level, so he can see the fire burning in her eyes. She’s so close that he can smell the fetid stench of rotting meat on her breath.

“What do you want?” he gasps.

She rolls her neck, and Will tries not to notice the way she moves, sinuous like a snake, uncannily unlike any person he’s ever known. Unlike even Hannibal.

“To tell you that you’re doing that wrong. If you’re going to rattle the gates of hell, you might as well do it right.” She sounds bored. She nods in the direction of the knife. “Forgetting something?”

Will feels his cheeks burn. “Oh.”

“Oh, indeed.” She pushes her face close to his, and even with the ring of salt between them, Will can’t help instinctively shrinking back. “Tell me, little child, what is it you want with Hannibal?”

“I want to give him a gift.”

Chiyoh’s laughter crashes through the room. _“Why?”_

He knows why. He knows that it’s none of her business, too. He ignores her curious gaze as he picks up the knife and runs it lightly across the palm of his hand, considering. He moves the blade lower, to the soft flesh inside his wrist and finally makes the cut midway up his forearm. He hisses as the sharp blade digs in, holds his arm above the candle and lets the blood sizzle and drip into the flame.

“You’ll need more blood than that.”

“How much more?” Will asks through gritted teeth.

Her eyes flash in the moonlight. “All of it.”

Will’s mouth goes dry. “All?”

“You didn’t think this was going to be an easy bargain, did you? To give up your soul, you have to die.” Chiyoh smirks. “Or don’t you want to give my brother a gift after all?”

“I do,” Will says, stubborn. He takes a deep breath and plunges the knife deeper.

Chiyoh smiles in approval. “Now do the other side.”

“You want me to die.”

“Yes,” Chiyoh says. “But I’m not wrong. This is how the ritual is performed.”

“And this will bind us? It’ll let me and Hannibal be together forever?”

“Cross my heart,” Chiyoh says, tracing a bloody X over her breastbone with one delicate talon. She watches the way Will’s eyes follow the motion and a smile curves her lips. She’s very pretty when she smiles, Will notices stupidly. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather play with me? All you have to do is put the knife down and step out of the circle. I meant what I said before—I can hurt you in ways Hannibal couldn’t begin to fathom.”

He hesitates for just a second. Chiyoh notices, and she laughs. Will’s grip tightens on the handle of the knife, angry at himself, angry at her.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

He’s bleeding freely now, and his grasp on the knife slips when he transfers it to the hand of his injured arm. It’s hard to close his fist. Even when he manages it, his grip feels feels weak and flimsy. He forces his fingers shut anyway, just long enough to make a long gash in his right forearm. He drops the blade with a clatter, panting.

The room seems to spin, and his vision goes fuzzy around the edges. He needs to brace himself against the floor in order to stay upright. He might smudge the chalk underneath him, although he tries not to. It’s hard to tell under the layer of blood beginning to coat the floor.

Chiyoh snaps her fingers in front of his face. “The ritual, child. Hannibal will be cross if I let you die for nothing.”

Will nods muzzily. He picks up the book, smudging red fingerprints over the pages. He dimly feels bad for ruining a library book.

Will lets his lips shape the words once more. He’s almost all the way through the spell, finally doing it right this time, when the attic door bangs open. Will’s head jerks up at the sound. He’s having trouble keeping his eyes open, He was tired when this night began, and he’s fading fast now.

“Will!”

It’s Hannibal’s voice—Hannibal in his true form, made of midnight, standing tall with eyes blazing. The familiar voice brings a smile to Will’s face, despite everything. Despite the nausea and shivers starting to overtake his body.

“What did you do?” Hannibal roars at Chiyoh, rounding on her with murder in his eyes.

“Nothing!” Chiyoh says, palms up in surrender. “This was your lover’s doing. His gift to you.” Her mocking smile falls when Hannibal draws near. She still takes several steps back, shrinking against the wall.

Hannibal ignores her, rushing right up to the edge of the salt circle surrounding Will. He snarls when he encounters it, when it repels him and he can’t get any closer.

“Will,” he says. _“Mylimasis, _you need to let me in.”

“No, I want to be with you always.”

“You can. You will, for as long as you’ll have me, I promise. But Will, you need to break the circle so I can get to you. You’re badly injured.”

Will shakes his head weakly. “If I get old and die, then we won’t be together anymore. But this way, we will.” He smiles, wishing Hannibal would smile too. Hannibal was supposed to be happy. Instead, there’s a look on his face that Will’s never seen before. “Chiyoh told me you can have my soul if I die.”

_“Will!”_

Hannibal claws at the floorboards, throwing himself against the barrier. He yells something at Chiyoh, who shouts something back. It’s all so loud. Will wishes everything would quiet down so he could sleep.

Will recognizes the look on Hannibal’s face now. He’d seen it on his own face so many times in the mirror. He’d seen it on his dad’s face before he died.

_Fear._

“Don’t be scared, Hannibal,” Will murmurs. He’s just so tired. He stretches himself out on the floor, forgetting to mind the candles. One tips over on its side, just like him.

He lays his head down and closes his eyes, just for a second.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel kind of bad when I leave you with a cliffhanger. It makes me want to metaphorically kiss it better with a new chapter as quick as possible. In that spirit, here we go— Merry Christmas!

Will wakes up in bed. His head feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton. Everything seems fuzzy and muted, and the light filtering in through the curtains seems much too bright. He flings an arm over his face to shield his eyes, and cries out at the sharp sting of pain that jolts through him at the impact.

He opens his eyes completely. Both his arms are wrapped in white bandages that cover up a deep, throbbing pain.

He sits up, pushing himself upright as best he can without the full use of his arms. His stomach hurts. There’s a pitcher of water sitting on the nightstand, and Will reaches for it, wincing. He manages to closes his hand around the pitcher’s handle, but it’s impossible to pick it up. A sharp pain lances through his arm when he tries to lift the pitcher, and he jerks it back, knocking over the water and a glass in the process. He makes a soft sound of frustration, hurt and thirsty, woozy when he tries to slide out of bed to pick up the mess he made.

“Don’t get up,” Hannibal says. He’s watching from the door, and Will wonders how long he’s been standing there.

He collapses back against the pillows with a sigh of relief. Something coiled tight in him eases at the sight of Hannibal.

Hannibal steps around the steadily growing puddle of water and glass, seemingly unconcerned with the mess on the floor. He rights the empty pitcher and leaves it on the sodden nightstand. Will feels stronger when he’s near.

Will opens his mouth, and his voice comes out as nothing more than a rasping squeak. He clears his throat and tries again. “Did it work?”

Hannibal looks at him for one stunned second, then slaps him across the face.

Will gasps, hand flying to his cheek. It isn’t the worst anyone’s ever hurt him—it’s not even the worst _Hannibal_ has ever hurt him, not by a long shot—but it reminds him of his father. It makes him feel helpless and small. Tears well up in his eyes, an automatic reaction he thought his dad had beat out of him. He’s acting like a baby, he knows, but he can’t help it. Tears trickle down his face, and soon he’s crying for real, wailing as racking sobs shake his body.

Hannibal looks panicked. “Are you all right? Does something hurt?”

“You hit me.”

“I—I often hurt you.”

Will shakes his head and cries harder. He careens headlong into the bad place in his head, where all the darkest things live. Straight into the abject misery and failure.

_Stupid._

He was stupid to think he could give Hannibal a gift, that Hannibal would want anything Will could give him. Grubby, scrawny, good-for-nothing Will. Stupid.

“I’m sorry,” Will gasps. “I thought you would want my soul, but I should’ve known you wouldn’t. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was so stupid. Please don’t leave. Please don’t send me away.” He pulls at his own hair, squinting his eyes shut tight and curling in on himself as best as he can, hoping to disappear. He breathes shallowly through his mouth, hoping that if he stays still enough, it’ll be like he doesn’t exist at all.

“I’m not going anywhere. Darling, you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

Large, warm hands wrap themselves around his. Hannibal pulls Will’s hands away from where they’re tangled in his hair. He sets them gently but firmly in Will’s lap, taking care not to graze his bandages. He pulls Will into him, and Will goes, flowing like water, letting himself be pulled into a big lap and wrapped in a warm, solid hug. Will tucks his chin into Hannibal’s chest and breathes in long, heaving breaths. Hannibal smells like the soap and the laundry detergent they both use and under it, the lingering smell of sulfur.

Hannibal holds him as he cries, heedless of the way Will’s tears and snot soak into the front of his shirt. Will is a mess, and Hannibal holds him through it, holds him as he cries it out, until he feels dizzy and hollow inside.

“Of course I want it,” Hannibal says softly. “I want everything you have to give. I would take all of it and leave you with nothing.”

Will sniffs loudly, trying to clear his stuffed nose. He drags a fist across his burning eyes. “Then why did you stop me?”

Hannibal crushes him to his chest, so tight it pushes the air from Will’s lungs. He can feel his ribcage creaking. “Because I don’t want you to die.”

The words hang heavy between them.

“But Chiyoh said—”

Hannibal’s face grows dark. “Don’t concern yourself with things Chiyoh said. She’s not your responsibility.”

Will furrows his brows. He doesn’t _want_ to let it go, but he’s tired, and he doesn’t know how to have this talk. “I want to be with you,” he says stubbornly.

Hannibal kisses him on the mouth, pressing his lips to the stubborn set of Will’s, still quivering in the aftermath of his tears. Hannibal kisses him gently, again and again, until Will sighs and melts against him, opening his mouth so Hannibal can slip his tongue inside. They kiss until Will’s dizzy, and after, he feels better, quietened and fuzzy with the first embers of desire.

Hannibal draws back before it can go anywhere, and Will can’t tell if he’s glad. He hurts too much for sex, but that doesn’t always stop Hannibal. He likes it sometimes, being taken however Hannibal wants, but this is nice too. Kissing just to kiss.

“One day when you’re older, we will talk about this. Until then, I want you to promise me you won’t try something like this again.” He stares straight into Will’s eyes, and Will looks away first. Hannibal grabs him gently by the chin and holds him in place until he finally drags his eyes up to meet Hannibal’s. “All right?”

Will sighs. He nods, slowly. “My head hurts,” he says in a small voice.

Hannibal releases his grip on Will’s face and kisses the top of his head. “I’ll bring you some aspirin. Are you hungry?”

Will nods.

“Lie back, and I’ll bring you some food.”

Will yawns wide enough that it cracks his jaw. “I might fall asleep.”

Hannibal tucks him in, pulling the covers up to his chin and smoothing them down. “That’s fine. I’ll wake you when the food is ready.”

“Okay,” Will says, his eyes already drifting shut of their own volition. He doesn’t remember the bed being this comfortable. It’s all so soft. He feels like he could drown in it. “I love you, Hannibal.”

He’s fast asleep before he hears the reply.

* * *

Will heals at a glacial pace. The cuts he managed to inflict upon himself were deep, severing tendons and leeching most of the blood from his body. It seems a stroke of unbelievable good fortune that Hannibal had awoken and found Will when he did. Better luck still that Will’s blood had dissolved the salt circle he’d drawn around himself before he had expired of blood loss.

Hannibal’s hands tighten involuntarily around the saucepan in his hand, crunching the metal handle beneath his fingers.

It was too close.

He doesn’t actually believe in good fortune, and he has his suspicions about Chiyoh—both her motives for appearing to Will in the first place and her motives for ruining his ritual. Hannibal has known Chiyoh too well and for too long to believe her capable of altruism. He is nevertheless grateful.

Part of him wishes he had not awoken, that he had allowed Will to finish the ritual undisturbed—to die. Then Will would be his forevermore. Hannibal is not an altruistic creature either. He is a demon through and through, one of the first ever created. He would have mourned if Will had perished, but not very long and not very hard. It’s tempting, even now, to let Will make a second attempt.

It’s foolish to allow Will to continue walking around in a leaking, frail human skin. More foolish still to _desire_ it to be so. Will inhabits flesh that tears so easily, that can be killed by sickness, by age, by _accident._ Better that he shed it once and for all so that Hannibal can keep him safe.

But Will wouldn’t be safe in hell. Not while Hannibal himself is not safe there. He hasn’t returned since he had decided to stay with Will. In part, it’s because he has no desire to leave Will’s side, now or ever. In part it’s because he knows what politics await him. Politics and worse, the longer he stays away. If Chiyoh had fought to defend his honor, then whispers have already begun to spread like cancer. It won’t be long until they reach the King’s ears, if they haven’t already.

He could go back now. He could return, swear his fealty. He would be punished, probably. He would endure. Eternity would carry on.

But that isn’t what he wants. If he’s being brutally, unflinchingly honest, that hasn’t been an option since Will punched him with tiny fists and demanded that he stay. He was lost already.

Hannibal can imagine what kind of man Will would grow into, imperious and cruel, vicious and bloodthirsty, with eyes for Hannibal alone. He wants it badly, wants to see what Will could become. He never will, if Will dies now.

The hordes of hell would tear him apart. They would tarnish his sweet soul, and that should be Hannibal’s job alone. So Will stays and so will Hannibal. The gears of hell turn slowly. They have time enough. Hannibal will meet whatever awaits him, but… eventually. Later. After Will’s time on this earth is through.

It’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough for a being as ravenous and greedy as he, but it is what he has. What they both have. He opens the refrigerator and pulls out a glass container of stew. It’s full of meat and lentils, fat and broth. It jiggles, gelatinous, as he upends the container into the pot and turns on the fire..

* * *

Will is sleeping when Hannibal returns with his meal. Hannibal tries to rouse him with a touch on the shoulder, frowning when Will doesn’t wake. He’s usually a light sleeper, but tonight he sleeps like the dead, a testament to how sick he is. It’s worrying—but Will wakes so sweetly, hazy confusion giving way to a sleepy smile when he recognizes Hannibal hovering above him—that all is immediately forgiven.

Will has lost so much blood. He’s weak as a newborn kitten, unable to so much as grip the handle of the spoon Hannibal gives him.

Hannibal loves it.

He takes full advantage, leaning back against the headboard and propping Will in his lap, nestled snug against him. Hannibal brings spoonfuls of hot soup to his mouth, and Will opens dutifully, even letting Hannibal wipe his mouth in between bites. They pass a peaceful half hour that way, no sounds in the room save the quiet draw of breath, the gentle slurp of soup, and the clinking of silver against porcelain.

When Will’s finished eating, Hannibal sets the empty bowl aside and pulls Will against him. He lets his hands rest on Will’s belly, rubbing slow, soothing circles over it. Will sighs and squirms, trying to get comfortable.

His belly is warm and soft, slightly distended from the meal, and Hannibal pushes on it, just a little.

Will makes a small sound of distress. “Hannibal, don’t. I’m so full.”

Hannibal presses on his belly again, a little harder this time, and Will groans, but he doesn’t make any move to get away. He doesn’t try to push Hannibal’s hands away, so Hannibal takes his time, pressing and probing the tender flesh. He rubs Will’s stomach a little harder, pulling Will back so he can feel Hannibal’s hardness against his backside.

“You like hurting me,” Will grumbles.

“Mm,” Hannibal hums into his sweet-smelling hair. “You like being hurt.”

Eventually Hannibal grows bored of his exploration, this small torment, and slides his hand lower. He cups Will’s penis through his pajama pants, feeling the little nub of flesh stiffen under his hand as he rubs. The fabric beneath his hands grows damp as Will’s pre-ejaculate leaks out, staining the inside of his shorts.

“Ha- Hannibal…”

Will tries to turn his face into Hannibal’s chest, but Hannibal holds him fast.

“Spread your legs,” he says, and Will does as he’s asked. He’s such an obedient child; he was wasted on his boor of a father. “Good boy,” Hannibal says, not because he particularly cares if Will is good or not, but because it makes Will flush a charming red. It makes his face twist with tormented longing, which makes Hannibal love him all the more. He kisses the side of Will’s temple. “Tell me if you’re going to come.”

Will nods, his breath coming in heavy pants.

“I’m gonna— Hannibal, I’m going to come.”

He thumps his head back against Hannibal’s shoulder, and Hannibal leans down to kiss him. He keeps up the rhythm, rubbing Will through the fabric of his pants until his breath grows staccato and his body stiffens. He comes, moaning wantonly into Hannibal’s mouth, and Hannibal eases him through it, only stopping when Will pushes his hand away, finally.

Will relaxes against Hannibal’s body in the aftermath, warm and pliant. His cheeks are a delicate pink, and his whole body seems to turn liquid. It lies languid against his. He sighs, happy and sated, and Hannibal is struck by an unfamiliar, uncomfortable sense of wonder.

How strange that this human trusts him. That he can bring pleasure and joy to another, that his touch and presence are wanted.

“You said you loved me,” Hannibal murmurs, and he’s unable to keep the note of wonder from his voice. It’s never been there before, he’s sure of it. He has never heard himself sound this way.

Will, of course, thinks nothing of it. Will doesn’t know Hannibal as he was, driving men to madness, sowing hatred and discord since time immemorial. He knows Hannibal as this—a man feeding him soup in a bed lined with soft, warm linens, in a room suitably darkened so as not to hurt his tired eyes. Will ducks his head, hiding, and Hannibal wonders why.

“Does that embarrass you?” he asks.

“Yes,” Will says at once. Then, more reluctantly, “No, not really. It’s—” He sighs. “It’s complicated. I think it’s a human thing.”

Hannibal cuddles him closer, tickling him a little to make him laugh. He is learning, little by little, how to be this for Will. What he needs. What he wants. “I’ve lived for millennia,” he says. “I was older than the mountains before you were a twinkle in your father’s eye. I’m sure I would understand anything you could tell me.”

“I’m not sure you would,” Will says, thoughtful. He looks at Hannibal with lucid blue eyes that seem to see straight into the core of him, rife with wisdom beyond his years.

Hannibal feels a spike of greed, a marrow-deep desire to possess this strange and wondrous child. Chiyoh doesn’t understand what Hannibal sees in him. If she did, she wouldn’t interfere.

“Loving me is probably a poor idea,” Hannibal says, and it’s only the truth. He runs a thumb tenderly over the curve of Will’s soft cheek. “I will hurt you more than you know.” Will’s face starts to fall, and something in the vicinity of Hannibal’s chest twists—that isn’t what he wants. He catches Will’s chin in his hand before he can look away. “But thank you. It is a rare gift you give me.”

Hannibal isn’t sure when the sun started to rise and set in this one child’s smile, but Will smiles softly up at him, and all is well.


	10. Chapter 10

Will heals at a glacial pace. Hannibal can close his wounds, encouraging the flesh to knit itself back together again, but he cannot restore what Will has lost, the blood he’d so carelessly cut from his own body.

He’d almost lost more.

Hannibal tries not to think on all the ways he still wants it—Will’s soul, glimmering and pure. He contents himself with all that he has instead: Will in his bed, looking up at him with those feverish, trusting eyes.

He considers bringing someone home, some poor soul who matters less than Will (All of them. They all matter less than Will). He thinks of cutting them open and stuffing their blood inside Will’s tired body. Hannibal has seen field transfusions performed in war, those desperate attempts to push back death and cling to the light. There was that one fellow in London, in the 1600s—the one with the dogs. That had been a good time.

The idea of strapping someone down and letting the life slowly drain out of them and into Will is tempting. In the end, Hannibal discards it before ever setting foot outside the house. Will is stable enough that he will not die, and his weakness is charming. It gives Hannibal an excuse to coddle and sometimes hurt him in small, inconsequential ways.

He calls into work and informs them that he’ll be unable to make it in today because his son is terribly ill. He considered blaming it on an accident, which is nearer to the truth, but decides that would invite more suspicion. Illnesses are nobody’s fault, after all. Too many accidents over time begin to look untoward.

But today, there is no suspicion for him at all. Samantha, the woman in charge of payroll and scheduling, coos her sympathy and tells him to take all the time he needs. Hannibal thanks her and hangs up the phone before venturing back into their bedroom that has become an infirmary.

Will looks up at the sound of the door opening, peering over the top of a book—fiction, not another occult book. One of the books Hannibal had picked up for him on the recommendation of a colleague whose daughter apparently also likes to read.

“How do you feel?” Hannibal asks.

Will shrugs. It’s definitely one of Hannibal’s least favorite human expressions. “Okay, I guess. Sore.”

Hannibal unwraps the bandages twined around Will’s arms. They come away faintly bloody, tinged with red. “Your cuts run deep. It will take some time before they’re fully healed.”

Will hisses as his cuts are exposed to the air. The wounds look raw and wet, so wide-open. Hannibal takes one small arm in his hand and brings it to his mouth. He licks along the length of the wound, laving it with saliva to encourage healing. Occasionally he pokes his tongue into one of the long slits so he can taste Will’s insides. Will cries out and jerks when he does, but Hannibal is stronger. He holds Will’s arm in a tight grip, teasing his tongue into the wound until Will shudders and cries above him.

He wraps Will’s arms with new bandages when he’s done, pressing a chaste kiss to the white lengths of gauze. Will flinches at the gentle touch.

* * *

Will doesn’t like to be left alone at night. Nightmares bother him, phantom images that shake his limbs and leave him sweating and scared. He fights even in his sleep, jerking violently and baring his teeth at things only he can see. Hannibal doesn’t like to see Will suffer in this way that he hasn’t caused. Not when he’s sure what he would see, if he could peel back Will’s skull like a curtain and peek inside his mind. He can hear it in the scared puff of breath, the frightened, weakly whimpered _‘Dad.’_

Suffering caused by an inferior hand.

Hannibal thinks that if he could, he would kill Will’s father a second time.

But his presence beside Will seems to soothe him. Hannibal has learned that he doesn’t need to wake Will to make the nightmares stop. A simple touch is enough. If he wraps his arms around the boy—if he lets Will nestle into his side, lets him smell the pheromones of the human skin he wears—Will’s face smooths and he clings to Hannibal until morning.

It’s strange that he should make any being, living or dead, feel safe in his embrace, much less a creature as frail as this one. But Will Graham sleeps well only when he’s near, and that fact fills Hannibal with a chest-puffing sort of pride that feels entirely earned.

He wakes now, as Hannibal tries to creep out of bed undetected. It’s strange that Will notices at all. Hannibal has shed his human body in favor of his truest form—one made of nightmare and malice, indistinct and strange. Will’s arm sinks harmlessly to the mattress where it had been wrapped around Hannibal’s torso, and Hannibal assumes the child will sleep on, but Will fusses as a baby might, turning toward a source of comfort now suddenly absent.

He looks cold. Hannibal has the ridiculous urge to cover him.

“Hannibal?”

“Hush,” Hannibal says. “Go back to sleep.”

“Where are you going?” Will sits up a little, pushing himself up on an elbow. Hannibal has to bite back a sudden spike of fear, a worry that Will might reinjure himself. He reminds himself that Will is already well on the way to recovery. His wounds are almost completely healed, shiny pink skin taking the place of the deep gashes that decorated his arms not even a week ago.

“I’m going to find a person to kill so I can feed you their flesh.”

Will blinks. Hannibal can see his eyes shuttering themselves in the dark. “Oh. You said you’d let me watch next time.” He’s barely awake. Hannibal won’t be surprised if he forgot this conversation by morning.

“You’re unwell,” Hannibal says, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “You can watch next time.”

He expects Will to argue. Will usually argues if he doesn’t get his way, but tonight he simply nods and sinks back against the bed.

“Promise?” he asks, voice already muffled by the pillow as he drifts back toward sleep.

“I promise,” Hannibal says.

* * *

Will’s never really liked other kids. The feeling’s mutual, of course. They’ve never really liked him much, either. He’d been bullied growing up, pushed around, called names. No one really wanted to hang out with the weird, skinny kid who could see too much about them. Even his teachers never liked him, so it doesn’t really bother Will that there are no kids in the fancy neighborhood where he and Hannibal live.

There are mothers pushing strollers that look more expensive than his dad’s old truck, and occasionally Will sees someone his age disappear inside a house, but it’s nothing like where he grew up. There are no children running outside in secondhand clothes, building snowmen and forts and flinging snowballs at one another. The streets are silent except for the rumble of the occasional car driving by. No piercing laughter echoes from the walls.

That’s why Will is so surprised to see a girl around his age sitting on a stoop, kicking her heels against the steps. She isn’t wearing the right clothes for winter. Supposedly winter should be over any day now, but it’s hung around, seemingly gaining in intensity the longer it stays. Will is cold in all the places his clothes don’t cover—his nose and cheeks, the space between his gloves and his jacket sleeves—so she must be freezing.

Will doesn’t like talking to other people—not unless they’re Hannibal or maybe Mrs. Brown at the library, and he’s not sure Hannibal counts because Hannibal is hardly _people__—_but he can see her shivering in her thin shirt, stamping her feet and trying to get warm. Gloveless hands are tucked in her armpits, and he can see her teeth chattering from here.

Will remembers what it’s like to be cold. _Really_ cold. He also wants to go home.

He’s better now, after the incident in the attic. He’s better after Hannibal had fed him meat and blood for days, licking his wounds diligently while Will had twined fingers in his hair. It hadn’t been all bad, and Will feels his cheeks flush just thinking about it. It’s been months since then, and he’s _better._ He’s not at death’s door, not anymore, but he still gets tired so easily.

Death’s door, hell’s door—it’s all the same to him. Even if his ritual had failed, even if he’s still the sole owner of his sole, Will knows better than to think he’s ever getting into heaven. Heaven isn’t for boys who get on their knees and beg demons to fuck them. It certainly isn’t for boys who dream of killing, whose nights are filled with visions of claws that rend and tear—not for boys who wish they had claws of their own.

So he hesitates. She looks so cold.

In the end, guilt wins out. Guilt or sympathy, something that lives in the neighborhood of pity. He walks up the sidewalk and stops at the foot of the stairs.

“Hey.”

She looks at him, wary and sullen. “Hi.”

“Are you okay?” Will asks.

“Yes.” She tips her chin up and peers down at him defiantly. Her shoulders sag. “No. I got locked out of my house.”

“Are your parents home?”

“Yeah, they’ve just got their stupid music on too loud to hear me.” She lets her head fall back against the door, hard enough that Will winces in sympathy.

“Oh.” He looks down the empty street. No one’s here. It’s almost Christmas; probably no one else is coming. “Do you want to borrow my jacket?”

She bites her lip. “I don’t know.”

“I have other jackets at home, it’s okay,” Will says.

She nods, finally.

Will shucks off his jacket and hands it to her. “Here.”

He passes over his scarf, gloves, and hat without a second thought. She puts them on, pulling the jacket on one arm then the other. Her fingers are too stiff to zip it herself, so Will does it for her. She relaxes once she’s all bundled up. She sighs and smiles a little.

“Aren’t you cold?” she asks, peering at him from under his hat.

Will shrugs. “It’s okay. I don’t live that far away. Are you going to get back inside?”

She shrugs too. “Sooner or later.”

“Okay,” Will says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Bye.”

* * *

The house is dark when he gets home, and Will frowns. Usually Hannibal is in the kitchen or sitting in the living room reading or sketching something. Hannibal draws a lot these days. The lights are off, and the stove is cold when Will pokes his head in the kitchen.

“Hannibal?” he calls, starting up the stairs.

He’s about to call out again when a voice upstairs makes him pause—a woman’s voice, out of place in the home that’s just for them. He makes his way up the stairs on quiet feet, following the sound coming from the bedroom.

There are other noises as he gets closer.

The noises themselves aren’t unfamiliar at all, and that’s what makes his heart clench. His dad had brought home women—not often, but sometimes. Sometimes Will would be awoken by the front door banging open, by his father and a stranger stumbling around in the dark. He’d press his pillow over his ears to drown out the loud sound of the headboard slapping against the wall, a lady moaning while his dad let out long, satisfied groans that turned Will’s stomach.

He’d preferred those nights, really. If his dad was passed out in the arms of a stranger, it meant he wasn’t going to find his way into Will’s bed. It meant that Will was safe, just for one night. That’s what safety was back then—something to be meted out in tiny chunks, earned one day at a time, hoped and prayed for to a God that wasn’t listening.

That’s not what safety is anymore. Will had thought he was safe here—a weird kind of safe, a different kind of safe, but safe nonetheless. It turns out there’s more ways to be hurt than he’d figured. He hadn’t even known to be afraid of _this._

There’s a low, throaty groan, a high-pitched giggle. Will opens the door to the bedroom—_their_ bedroom. The door that isn’t even closed all the way, like Hannibal had wanted him to see. They’re naked, the both of them. Hannibal is sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes slitted shut in pleasure. There’s a woman between his knees, kneeling at the foot of the bed.

Her lips are wrapped around Hannibal’s cock, head bobbing obscenely. Will watches transfixed, rooted to the spot with a sense of slowly mounting horror. Hannibal’s fingers are twined in her hair, glossy brown strands spilling like water between his fingers. He moans, the sound a subsonic rumble low in his throat, and something in Will just snaps.

That’s _his._ Hannibal’s hands, his cock, the look on his face, the sounds he makes when something feels good—those are _Will__’s,_ not hers.

It would be a lie to say he didn’t mean to do it, that he didn’t know what he was doing. His fingers wrap around the heavy stag statue sitting on the mantle, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing when he creeps across the carpet on quiet feet, when he glares at Hannibal, who moves his hand out of the way with a small smile. He knows what he’s doing when he smashes the bronze statue over her head, when he does it again and again because it’s so much harder to kill people than he’d imagined.

Physically, it’s harder. Mentally, it feels like something clicking into place. Like slipping on a shoe that fits just right, one that doesn’t pinch at all.

Her teeth might click shut on Hannibal’s dick. Right now Will doesn’t really care.

He pants, breathing hard with exertion as he lets the dripping statue fall to the floor. The woman stares up unseeing from the floor, glassy eyes and hair a matted mess of blood.

“How could you?”

Hannibal reaches for him, and Will pulls away. _“Mylimasis_—”

“Don’t call me that!” Will snaps. He’s horrified to find that he’s _crying._ Fat, wet teardrops slide down his cheeks. He doesn’t want to be sad. He wants to be _angry._ He is angry. The thick, bitter taste of disappointment feels as though it might choke him.

Hannibal advances upon Will, backing him against the door and wrapping strong arms around him. It has the unfortunate—and likely intended—effect of pinning Will’s flailing arms to his side, arms that want to hit and tear, hands that still want blood. He traps Will against the hard wood behind him, enveloping him in a solid hug, and Will follows the mean little impulse inside him and bites.

Hannibal grunts as Will latches onto the tender flesh of his ribs, but he doesn’t hit Will or tell him to stop, not even when Will bites hard enough to taste blood. Hannibal’s blood is bitter as it flows over his tongue. It mixes with the thick, salty taste of his own snot and tears, and Will only lets go because he can’t breathe.

Hannibal simply strokes the back of his head. “My little wolf,” he says fondly. “Such teeth you have. Why wouldn’t I call you that? You’re my beloved.”

Will gasps at the words, which means he finally lets go of his vicious hold on Hannibal’s skin. Black blood seeps sluggishly from the wound, diluting as it mixes with Will’s spit smeared around small teethmarks. Hannibal hasn’t used the word _love_ or anything like it until now. But Hannibal is only saying it because he’s mad, because Will caught him fucking _her,_ so it doesn’t count.

“You let her put her mouth on you,” Will says, accusing.

“Yes.” Hannibal tips his head to the side. “That upsets you.”

“Of course it upsets me!”

“Why?”

Will squints at Hannibal. He doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of Will. He sounds… like he’s actually asking. Will pulls away and scrubs the tears off his cheeks with the rough edge of his sleeve. _“Because.”_

Hannibal raises his eyebrows. “‘Because’ is not a reason.”

“Because when you love someone, they’re supposed to be the only person you do it with. It’s—it’s supposed to be special.”

Hannibal strokes a hand down Will’s back, from the top of his spine down to his tailbone. Will hates the way it makes him shiver even now. He notices for the first time that Hannibal is still naked, the way his erection juts out between his thighs. Will hates that he wants it, even now. He balls his hands into fists and digs his nails into his palms until he can feel a bright spark of pain.

He can’t help the way his body responds to Hannibal’s touch, to the very sight of him. He can’t help letting himself be soothed like a dog when all he wants is to hold onto his anger, the way it feels clean and bright.

“Is what we do special?” Hannibal asks.

“Yes,” Will breathes. “It isn’t to you?”

Hannibal pauses. His hand stills where it’s tracing its track down Will’s back, and he chooses his words with care. “It’s different for me.”

“Because you’re a demon.”

Hannibal flattens his hand over Will’s shoulder blades. “Because I’m a demon. Fidelity is a foreign concept to us. Not even foreign—anathema. It’s a form of piety. Of virtue.” His lips quirk up in a wry smile, like he’s telling a joke Will doesn’t get. “Demons don’t particularly go in for virtue.”

Will pulls back from Hannibal all at once, struck by an impulse dark and fearless. He grabs Hannibal’s chin in hand like Hannibal has done to him so many times. He forces Hannibal to meet his eyes. He forces him to his knees.

“I don’t care. I don’t want you to fuck anyone else, not ever again.”

Hannibal watches him with eyes wide and hungry. With lips parted. “Only you?”

“Only me. For as long as we both shall live.”

Hannibal could point out that as long as he shall live is a long time, much longer than Will. Their timelines are different lengths, starting and ending in vastly different places. He could, and yet he doesn’t.

“Only you, for as long as we live,” he says instead, knowing exactly what it is he’s agreeing to, even if Will doesn’t.

Not yet.


	11. Chapter 11

Hannibal knows how quickly human lives are spent—Chiyoh has reminded him often enough, and he is no fledgling demon still wet behind the ears. He’s still shocked at the rate Will grows. He blooms into an adolescent before Hannibal’s eyes, long gangly legs and a voice that cracks more often than it doesn’t.

Hannibal finds it terribly charming, like everything about Will, but he’s learned to hide his smile at the interesting things Will’s body does. If Hannibal smiles at some unexpected new quirk of Will’s biology, or god forbid if he laughs, Will is likely to descend into a sulk that lasts for days, slamming doors and banging any object that can be banged. Their house has gotten so noisy.

Hannibal wistfully remembers when Will used to be _quiet._

Still, there’s no getting around the fact that human puberty is interesting_._ Will grows tall, until he reaches Hannibal’s chin when he stands. Hair sprouts on his body, under his arms and over his legs. A fine dusting of it begins to grow in soft curls around the base of his cock. Hannibal loves to nose at it, breathing in the rich scent of _Will._

Will is altogether more fragrant these days. There’s a ripe smell that clings to him, that of a young body awash in hormones. When they’re alone, Hannibal sometimes lifts Will’s arm and sticks his nose in the hollow of Will’s armpit, inhaling the musky aroma.

“Hannibal, what are you doing?” Will shoves him away, full of seething irritation.

Hannibal simply tightens his grip on Will’s wrist, undaunted. Will is more interested in fighting him these days.

“Smelling you,” he says.

“Are you telling me I stink?”

“Far from it. I enjoy the natural odors of your body.”

Will’s face twists into a grimace. “Ugh. You are just the worst, you know that?”

Hannibal hums. “There are certainly many dead men who think so. You wouldn’t be the first.”

Will is stiff and unyielding in his arms, but Hannibal fits his nose into the space behind Will’s ear and kisses him just there, laying little nipping, sucking bites over the soft skin, and Will gives a sweet sigh and relaxes in his arms. He twines his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders and wraps his legs around Hannibal’s hips, straddling him on their couch.

“Why do I love you?” Will asks with heavy-lidded eyes.

Hannibal kisses a line down his neck and Will tips his head back to give him more room, humming softly. His fingers flex and dig into the meat of Hannibal’s shoulders.

“I have no idea,” Hannibal says honestly. “I’m glad that you do.”

Will slips from Hannibal’s arms, quicksilver-lithe. He slides to the floor and pushes Hannibal’s knees apart to make room. He unfastens Hannibal’s pants, taking his time with the belt buckle, dragging the zipper down slowly. He presses the flat of his hand to the warm, solid bulge of Hannibal’s erection.

Wearing this skin has become second nature. It feels as though it belongs to him, on him. Hannibal has grown used to the way it responds, and it responds now. He lets his eyes slide shut and presses into Will’s hand, seeking friction. There’s something dark in the sound of Will’s laugh as he watches. Will likes to see him undone, he knows. He loves to watch Hannibal lose control, to see him grow helpless and wanting under his touch, and Hannibal is happy to give it to him. He’s happy to encourage Will’s darkness, that twisted, lovely thing, in any way he can.

Hannibal’s cock springs free at last, and he can’t help hiss at the feeling of cool air across his fevered skin. Will leans forward to take it into his mouth, swallowing it down in one neat motion. He’s in a mood today, clearly. Hannibal slides his fingers into Will’s hair and lets his head thump back against the couch cushions.

“Will.”

He can feel the way Will’s smile curves against his skin as he takes him deep. He uses his mouth, freeing his hands to tug at the waistband of Hannibal’s pants, a suggestion. One that Hannibal happily obliges, lifting his hips so Will can work his pants down. There’s some maneuvering, an awkward, jostling moment of knees and elbows and careless apologies, and then Hannibal’s pants are on the floor and Will is back between his thighs, cheeks hollowed as he suckles Hannibal’s cock.

Will wrings short, sharp breaths from his body. It’s an effort to keep from thrusting upward and fucking Will’s mouth, stretched obscenely wide. A shiny trail of saliva drips from his chin, past flushed, red lips. Will drags a finger through it, down and down. Hannibal watches, transfixed.

The first touch of Will’s finger against his hole is tentative, but only for a moment. He pushes in, the friction catching against his entrance—saliva makes poor lubrication, after all.

He swallows Hannibal’s cock all the way down to the base, and Hannibal comes down his throat with a rough shout. Will sucks him through it, licking and mouthing at his oversensitized skin, and Hannibal looks down, craning his neck to watch the place where Will’s finger disappears into his body.

Will pulls his mouth from Hannibal’s rapidly softening cock, finally.

“Can I fuck you?”

Hannibal nods, not quite trusting his voice. His throat feels strangely tight. “There’s lubricant in the side table.”

“I know where it is,” Will says, seemingly incapable of not rolling his eyes, even now. “I should fuck you without it. You fucked me with my own blood, that first time. Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

Will grabs the bottle of viscous liquid anyway. He shucks his clothes, quick and eager. He coats his fingers, and he’s gentle when he presses back into Hannibal’s body. Will finds a spot inside him that makes little sparks of pleasure dance along his nerve endings, and he plays with it until Hannibal’s legs begin to quiver.

“Is that what this is about?” Hannibal gasps. “Remembering? Revenge?”

“Isn’t everything?”

Will bends to lick the place where his fingers meet the stretched rim of Hannibal’s entrance. He makes a face at the taste, but Hannibal’s body still jerks, electrified. Will does it again, sucking and kissing and trying to fit his tongue alongside fingers that rub against Hannibal’s prostate without a drop of mercy.

Will stares, watching like an avenging angel. His cruel god. There’s a bright flush across his face and chest, and Hannibal can’t help but reach out to touch it. He thinks Will might pull away, but instead he leans into it. He relaxes into Hannibal’s touch with a wordless sigh, eyes closed in supplication.

He pulls his fingers out, a little too rough. It makes Hannibal wince, but maybe that was Will’s intention.

A flicker of hesitation blooms across his face then, a fleeting hint of the sweet boy he used to be, and Hannibal’s heart clenches. “Should we go to the bedroom? Do you want to do this on a bed?”

Hannibal can’t help reaching out to tug on one of Will’s long curls. “However you want, _mylimasis.__”_

“Here,” Will says. “I want you now.”

“Then have me.”

Will clambers onto the couch. He slicks up his cock, hands trembling in his eagerness. He rises up onto his knees and pulls Hannibal forward with sticky fingers. He presses the tip of his erection to Hannibal’s hole, sliding past the entrance once, twice.

“It’s so slippery,” Will murmurs.

“Push forward,” Hannibal says. He wraps his hand around Will’s and helps guide him in.

There’s the sudden near-pain of intrusion, as muscles tense and dense clusters of nerves send a jangle of signals to his brain. It’s a sensation dancing on the knife’s edge between pain and pleasure, but it’s Will, and Hannibal wants everything Will has to give him.

And oh, he is glorious to behold. He breathes like a lathered horse, sucking in great breaths. His face contorts in concentration, and his voice is tight when Hannibal strokes over the keys of his ribs.

“Don’t,” Will gasps. “Oh god, don’t touch me right now. I’m going to—”

“It’s all right,” Hannibal says, soothing. He doesn’t quit touching. He runs his hands over every inch of Will that he can reach, drinking in the soft, warm skin with his fingertips. Will is glazed all over with a light sheen of sweat, and Hannibal surges up to taste it, licking a long stripe up the side of his neck.

Will comes with a choked groan. He digs his fingers into Hannibal’s back, scratching the skin until it bleeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They flip in every universe 😉


	12. Chapter 12

Will is angry. He’s angry all the time now, feels it like magma roiling under his skin. Like a pot of water left to boil over in his belly.

The air inside their warm, lushly appointed house feels stifling at all times, and Will makes it a point to be _out_ as much as possible. He has to come home eventually, and when he does, he slams doors. He opens the cupboards just to knock them shut again. Any book he picks up is thrown down as forcefully as possible when he’s finished with it, preferably against a hard surface.

He’s started listening to music that’s mostly noise, whose loud, wailing strains pump him full of so much racket that he can’t even think. It’s the surest way he knows to get out of his head, and it has the added bonus of pissing Hannibal off. Hannibal, who will bare his teeth and snarl at Will, who can snarl right back.

It’s hit or miss, these days, whether any touch will be welcome. Today is not a good day. Today he’s in the kitchen, leaning into the fridge when Hannibal touches him. Will growls, slamming the refrigerator door and flinching back. Hannibal’s hand travels with him, a firm pressure on the back of his neck, and Will has the perverse impulse to turn and bite.

“Hannibal, what the fuck?”

Hannibal’s grip tightens, pinching the nerves at the back of his neck, scruffing him like a puppy until he settles.

“What’s gotten into you today?” Hannibal asks, backing Will into the counter. He brings his free hand down to the front of Will’s jeans, rubbing hard along the seam, a firm, steady pressure that makes Will’s eyelids flutter shut. “Do you need something, my dear?”

Will clenches his fists, turning his head aside. “I don’t want anything from you.”

Hannibal takes it as an invitation, nosing along Will’s neck and fastening his mouth to the skin there. He sucks hard, pulling a soft, grudging sound from Will’s mouth. Will can feel Hannibal’s smug smile against his throat—he hates it, and he hates Hannibal, but he nevertheless pushes forward, thrusting his body into Hannibal’s searching, insistent hands.

“Fuck you,” he spits.

Hannibal’s smile widens. “After you, dear.”

He spins Will around without warning, sending him thudding into the counter with enough force to bruise his hipbones against its edge. He unfastens Will’s pants with nimble fingers, tugging them down around his knees. The cold air stings his newly exposed skin, and he’s panting by the time Hannibal pulls his cheeks apart, spreading him open.

Hannibal brushes a dry finger over his hole, rubbing with insistent pressure that makes him gasp. Hannibal dips the tip of his thumb in, and Will groans at the feeling, a sharp sensation that edges on just the right side of pain. He squirms, body uncertain whether it wants to get closer or get away.

Hannibal decides for him, bringing a hand back up to the nape of his neck and pushing him forward, until he’s bent double with his cheek pressed flat against the cold steel of the counter.

Will feels the blunt head of a cock at his entrance, and that makes him fight harder. He bucks and kicks, lashing out with his feet and arms, but he can’t reach Hannibal from where he’s pinned against the counter. Can’t kick without taking his own legs out from under him. He’s gotten tall in recent years—almost as tall as Hannibal—but Hannibal is bigger and stronger, with a supernatural strength that Will can’t hope to match.

“You can fight me, sweet boy,” Hannibal coos in his ear. He bites down on the shell of Will’s ear and pushes his hips forward, thrusting into the tight heat of Will’s body in one brutal motion.

Will screams at the intrusion, feels it tear into him. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes as his nails scratch at the countertop, finding no purchase.

“Fuck. Fuck, Hannibal.” His voice is strained and rough, and Hannibal doesn’t let up. He holds Will down and starts to move, pumping his hips in short staccato thrusts that split Will at the seams.

He bites his lip to keep from screaming, bites until he punches clean through the skin and tastes blood. Every thrust of Hannibal’s cock burns like fire, like a hot poker splitting him open. It’s so deep he can feel it in his belly, a horrible, cramping ache.

Hannibal’s chest feels like a furnace against his back, claustrophobic and trapped. Their skin slides together unpleasantly, slicked by sweat. Hannibal palms Will’s ass, kneading into the flesh and holding him open to thrust deeper still.

Will groans. He squeezes his eyes shut tight and fights futilely to get free, each thrust jarring him forward against the counter, knocking his chin against its slick, hard surface and rattling his teeth. He’s crying in earnest now.

He feels a nudge at his lips and opens reflexively, his body so easily succumbing to what Hannibal wants—to whatever he wants. His eyes fly open, and he gags as Hannibal slides three fingers past ragged, torn lips. He tastes salt and blood, the digits catching on split skin and making him wince.

Hannibal stills, hips flush against Will’s ass, buried as deep as he can possibly get. He leans forward to press a chaste kiss to Will’s cheek.

“I love you,” he says, flicking his tongue out to taste the salt of Will’s tears.

Will sobs. He feels spitted, stuffed full and humiliated, leaking all manner of fluids all over Hannibal’s pristine kitchen. Hannibal shoves his fingers deeper into Will’s mouth, pushing as far as they’ll go, until Will gags on them. 

He panics, fighting down the mounting sensation that he can’t _breathe_ as he retches, body doing its best to clear an immovable object. Hannibal presses soft kisses to his brow, his temple, the thin skin of his eyelids as Will’s throat convulses around him.

He can’t even get the leverage to bite, jaw split impossibly wide, so wide it aches. He feels the cuts in his mouth deepen, feels blood drip down his chin onto the counter below. He makes an angry sound that comes out a wet gurgle.

“Shh,” Hannibal soothes, leaving his fingers in place as he starts to move inside Will again, short, shallow thrusts that go on and on. “It’s okay, just breathe.”

The edges of Will’s vision go fuzzy and grey. He feels sick, feels like he’s floating, and then everything goes dark and he feels nothing at all.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, truly did not think I'd be back here again, what with having jumped ship to another fandom and all. But I think about the things I haven't finished, from time to time. I've always known the shape of this story, how I wanted it to play out. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a shame not to at least try to give it to you.
> 
> I have no idea if this is the story that anyone wants, but it's apparently the story that I still want to tell.

**20 years later**

Hannibal is part of the fabric of his life. Part of the warp and weft of it, as deeply embedded as any burr, a splinter left to fester and rot beneath the skin. He’s as near to Will as his own arm, as foundational as his skeleton. Will’s  _ life _ has been built upon this man who’s not even really a man.

He’s known it, always, in that dim way in the back of his mind. He’s never had cause to really  _ feel _ it until he wakes up one day and finds him—gone.

Just gone.

It’s not as alarming as it could be, at first. Not as alarming as it will be later, when the sun sinks below the horizon and Will finds himself alone in their Baltimore home for the first time in years. When every doorway seems to yawn far too wide and the bed swallows him up, the perfect size for two but far too big for Will’s frame alone—Will, who still prefers to sleep facing the door, his back against something warm and solid. The habits of a lifetime die hard.

No, it’s not that bad at first.

It will be  _ awful _ later, but for now it’s just a mild concern, a tickle of unease at the back of Will’s mind that’s considered and summarily dismissed. The tether between he and Hannibal has grown longer as years have gone by. Will was by all accounts a terrible teenager, all hissing, spitting rage and a bloodlust Hannibal was only too happy to indulge, cultivating it like a hothouse flower in bloom. He never much minded if Will’s sadism was turned on him or other people, just so long as it was there.

All of this, the summation of a life well-lived together, means that Will worries for the briefest of moments, then chides himself for being ridiculous. Hannibal is fine. He’d probably gone into the office early. There’s that one needy patient—Franklyn, Frank something. Will wouldn’t be surprised if the man was having another “crisis.” He has a thing for Hannibal, anyone can see it. Hannibal makes only the barest attempts to dissuade him. It brings out the green in Will, envy simmering just beneath the surface until he can gnash his teeth against it, and Hannibal of course loves it.

Will wonders what Franklyn would think of his favorite psychiatrist if he knew how fast and loose Hannibal was playing with his life. It’s an idle thought, considered and then shelved. Will pads down to the kitchen in his bare feet and starts the coffee grinder, yawning and leaning into the counter as the warm scent of arabica beans fills the kitchen.

He idly scratches at the top of one foot with his toes, scrolling through Tattlecrime on his phone and giving Taker a pat when he noses at Will’s hand. Freddie Lounds is a terrible person, but damned if she doesn’t do good work.

He drinks his coffee and skips breakfast. Sit-down meals are really more Hannibal’s thing than his. He’ll grab something on the way to his lecture, if it comes to that.

* * *

The day is just a day, the same as all the others that have come before it since Will got this job teaching at the Academy. He doesn’t hate it. There’s a kind of perverse pleasure in molding the minds of tomorrow, the future FBI agents of America. He gets a kick out of it, so sue him.

He goes through his day like everything is normal because as far as he knows, it is. He passes Alana in the hall, and they chat about nothing. He despises small talk, but he makes her nervous, and that—that he finds a little bit funny. He gives two lectures and eats lunch in his office, marking papers and trying to stave off the headache brewing between his eyes.

It doesn’t hit him until he gets home, the world’s most unjust stay of execution.

The house is dark and empty by the time Will pulls into the driveway. The sun has long set, and all the neighboring houses give off their own warm glow. Chills prickle down the back of his spine, the hair on the nape of his neck standing on end. He draws the weapon that he, strictly speaking, is not supposed to own. He hears Giver and Taker’s whines before he even opens the door, their nails scrabbling at the fine wood, scratching it in their distress, and Hannibal would just hate that.

Will unlocks the door with one hand and swings it wide, gun drawn and at the ready. He shushes the dogs distractedly, patting Giver’s massive flank while both dogs crowd in tight against his legs and whine.

“Hannibal?” Will flicks on the light. He makes his way into the kitchen and turns that light on too. “Hannibal?”

No answer.

He walks through the house, turning on lights as he goes, until the whole place is lit up like a Christmas tree. No Hannibal. No knocked-over furniture, no broken glass, no scuff marks on the floor. Not a single sheaf of paper or piece of clothing is out of place. The closets are full. There’s no sign of a struggle. Hannibal is just—gone.

Gone.

Will falls where he stands when it hits him, back sliding down the wall until his ass collides with the floor, hard. He sits down heavily and stares at his hands, the gun still cradled in one. The dogs lick his face and whine, wiggling with their tails between their legs. He can’t even find it in himself to push them away. He can barely hear them over the ringing in his ears, the startling, alarming white noise.

Hannibal is gone.


End file.
